One Eyed Alchemy
by rickyp01
Summary: Continuation of One Eyed Ascencion. 5 years after leaving his Sister's training, Harry's finally ready to discover his parent's legacy. Slower update times ahead,
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

He'd ended up spending around a year and a half with his sister, training to control his newfound powers. She'd given him a single challenge to prove that he'd become competent enough in his skills to stand on his own as a king. This challenge she'd set him had been simply to destroy a single one of her golden kings.

And it had taken him 19 months of constant training to achieve it. He'd learned how to harness his powers, how to defend himself from direct attacks. But most important, at least as far as Harry was concerned, was that he'd gained a sister in the process. She'd still be stern and proud, but after a while a degree of sisterly affection had entered her voice when she'd chided him. No longer were their interactions that of a teacher anxious to see if her student would grasp the wisdom which she'd imparted, instead it became more like a an older sibling looking proudly as their baby brother made their first steps, said their first word, learned their first spell and accidently killed their first league of cultists.

But after 19 months of continuous and driven effort Harry finally achieved a point where his sister felt him ready to face the world. So he did, They'd still regularly speak through Apollo's avian messenger, but for the remaining time Harry had wandered the world on his own. Or at least as "on-his-own" as a child accompanied by a legion of cows, bulls, wolves, sheep, boars, stags, cicada, locust, swans, ravens, guinea fowl, bears, snake-dragons, mice, hawks, griffins and dolphins could ever really be.

He'd had plenty of adventures over the years, fighting divine beasts. Meeting his older brother, fighting his older brother, fleeing from his older brother, killing all his older brother's wolves and ghost-slaves in a cloud of divine poison running away, meeting his younger-older sister, visiting the library of Alexandria, accidentally bumping into an oil-lamp while playing hide-and-go-seek with his dogs. Before returning to the future.

Truly Harry had a lot of adventures, some more chaotic then others and not all of which he'd gotten out of unscathed, but after all that time he'd returned to the land of his birth for a single mundane reason.

He wanted to go to school, At some point over the last 5 years he'd been told about his parents. And the origin of the scar he'd had before meeting Serqet. And he'd been told about the fate of the witches and the wizards of Britain.

He wanted to help them, to find a cure for the blindness they'd been struck with. Not much was known about the nature of the curse. But scholars suspected it to be caused by either the divine power of Poseidon or Discordia, though the strange sensory-depriving nature of the curse had proven to affect anyone who'd attempted to glean deeper. Speculation was abound though, just no concrete proof.

But as much as Harry would tell the world that he'd only gone to see if he could help them, really there was another reason. Harry wanted to know his legacy, to see the world his parent's new and figure out what had become of them.

And maybe just maybe he would get a break from this whole "being a king"-business. Getting recognised by everyone grew tiring after a while, and the expectations that he start ordering people around just didn't sit well with him. He'd met his brother and seen where that kind of power could lead him one day.

So he went, he knew when the letters would be sent out and had arrived in advance, but first he'd needed a place to stay. Luckily for Harry his pets were versatile. His cow's milk was highly sought after amongst the richer mages, something about "increasing fertility and stamina". The same went his wool, fabric warmer more comfortable then any mortal fabric that seemed to resist magical attacks and even stopped small calibre bullets, and don't ask how he'd found that out.

So after 5 years of milking the herd of Admetus and shearing the flock of Apollo Harry had managed to save up enough money to purchase a small but luxurious apartment in Downtown London. Manifesting an avatar to turn into a white raven Harry had flown over walls outside of the Leaky Cauldron and converted a not-insignificant amount of wizarding currency.

Harry had arrived in Britain ahead of time for only a single reason; Wands. Harry didn't know whether a regular wand would work for him, and even if it did he was fairly sure it would be practically useless to him in a fight. So he'd decided to order a custom job for himself, and seeing as Ollivanders would no doubt be busy during the summer with the influx of young wizards and wizards he'd decided it would only be polite to order it in advance.

And so Harry spent an uneventful spring in England, having given Garrick Ollivander some horn's and tusks his familiars had lost in various fights over the years.

His wand was crafted from his boar's tusk, with a handle made from the antlers of Artemis' stags, with a core made out of wolf-fur, divine wool and swan's feathers, amongst others.

Intricate carvings of the sun and moon graced its ivory length, it was light and swishy, but brimming with divine might.

At some point During the summer, the doorbell rang. Harry leapt up, running down the hall in anticipation, almost tripping over his own legs in his haste. Harry opened the door and revealed a bearded old man wearing a rainbow-coloured coat, carrying a parchment envelope embedded with a purple seal.

"Hello Mister Potter, My name's Albus Dumbledore…" the man said, a smile on his face and tears in his eyes "You've had us all worried for quite a while."

* * *

 **So, update speed is probably going to slow down from here on out, this for the simple reason that this is the point where we start seeing actual interactions with characters in their canon-state, and i want to take extra time to get that stuff right.**

 **This particular chapter took a long while because i wanted to check a few vital facts, pre-script the entire book and all it's plotpoints and even create a rough outline as to the fight against it's final-boss (Hint: It's not Quirrelmort). And compare the canons to see if there's any gaping plotholes I've forgotten. Interesting trivia: Voban is in his 300's, making him possibly half as young as Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel.**

 **I've still got one major issue, that being which authority Harry will end up getting from the god, and if anyone is willing to help me reason out a good "fit" there please PM me, but bewarned I will spoil you on the final boss of this schoolyear in the process.**


	2. Chapter 2: Of Trains and Ghosts

Harry's first "official" introduction to the wizarding world had been a bit of a let-down, besides a few questions from Dumbledore about his apparent and using his avatar manifestation abilities to take on the appearance of a more appropriate age, he'd gotten the key to a vault of wizarding currency,

Apparently Dumbledore had been appointed as the executor of the Potter Wills. But the wills had been enchanted in some way to prevent anyone, even the executor, from knowing what was inside them. This was an apparently old wizarding custom to prevent a beneficiary of the will deciding to cash in on their inheritance early. The logic being that "if they don't know there's money to get, they won't try to get it."

Which basically meant that Dumbledore's job was simply to remember where the Potters had stored the will, so he could reveal the will should something happen to them.

It had been stored in Godric's Hollow, and been destroyed in the blast that destroyed Voldemort.

So after the war there'd been a landmark legal case as the wizarding world tried to figure out how to deal with an inheritance without a will. It had been decided that the executor of the will would be granted the right to divide the estate in such a situation, with the stipulation that none of it may go to themselves, and that the entire process be heavily monitored to prevent them from somehow funnelling the wealth into their own account.

Most shocking to Harry was something, which shouldn't have been at all.

Dumbledore couldn't see his familiars. In hindsight it was obvious, the wizards had been infamous for their inability to see the divine, why would Harry have expected them to be capable of seeing his beasts.

This did come with one complication, usually Harry's main method of long distance communication came in the form of a white raven, born from the power of Apollo. Clearly this wouldn't work in the wizarding world. A quick shopping trip later and Harry had bought himself a white owl for all his wizarding messenger-needs.

* * *

Harry was seated aboard the root of mankind's downfall, reading a book on wizarding spells and charms when a red-haired boy entered his cabin, accompanied by a set of older twins who soon left to look at their friends Tarantula. Ron seemed a friendly fellow, clearly as nervous as Harry but undoubtably for different reasons.

Where Harry's nerves were related to their current mode of transportation, and the possibility of his big Sis hearing about his betrayal of all she stood for, Ron seemed rather tense about school, after some quick introductions, and questions about the lack of an apparently famous scar, Ron started talking about Quidditch. Apparently some wizarding sport, it sounded interesting but he didn't really know much about it and just decided to let Ron talk while he continued his reading on this strange new style of magic.

After Ron had run out of things to say about they fell into a comfortable silence, only broken by the turning of pages and eventually a lady with a cart full of sweets.

After asking Ron about what each and every candy was, He'd asked the woman for a couple dozen chocolate frogs. between the two of them they ate half a dozen frogs, but Harry kept most of them for later. More interested in the cards with pictures of famous witches and their impact on the world he'd now found himself in.

Dumbledore, Paracelsus, Trismegistus, Tugwood, Circe, Rowena Ravenclaw and Agrippa had been in his hands, Harry quickly wrote down the description on Agrippa before giving it to Ron. Apparently he was a collector and Harry didn't mind giving him the card.

* * *

After a while Harry was starting to get bored, no matter how much he liked Ron they were still just sitting around doing nothing. Something Harry had little experience with, his life was one of adventure and magic. So when a boy asked if he'd seen a missing pet, Harry had bid his newfound friend goodbye to search for the lost toad.

After a while spent searching to no avail, and meeting the high-strung but overly worried Hermione. And bonding a little with Neville about their mutual love of animals, the train finally arrived in Hogsmeade.

A quick trip across a lake, and a friendly giant retrieving the missing toad later they found themselves at the door. Where they were escorted by an old-looking woman wearing a set of square glasses, who instructed them to wait outside a door for until she'd call for them.

Suddenly someone behind him yelped and Harry turned around, and came face-to-face with a ghost, Why where there ghosts? Souls didn't normally linger and the only person he knew about who could make ghosts was all the way in the Balkans.

But could he really take the risk that these ghosts were servants of his older brother? No he couldn't, so he grabbed his two closest friends, and ran for his life.

* * *

Hermione Granger was standing at the door of the great hall, trying to recall every spell she'd learned over the summer so as to prepare for whatever test would decide their house, when she was suddenly pulled along at breakneck speed by the child she'd met on the train alongside a the red-haired boy he'd been sharing a compartment with, somewhere after turning into three separate corridors and up five flights of stairs the kid had muttered something beneath his breath, and the world had vanished in a golden light. When the her senses returned to her she and the red-haired boy were riding on a horse through the halls of the school, she didn't know where the horse had come from, nor how she'd gotten mounted but she did know one thing.

If the horse kept running as it was, they'd surely be late for the sorting ceremony. She didn't know what would happen if they were, maybe they'd be expelled, maybe the teachers would make them write lines on a chalkboard. But no matter what would happen, she wouldn't allow it. This was to be her first day in this brand new world, she needed to make a good first impression on her new teachers.

So she'd done the only thing she could think of to get horse back to its senses. And when that failed she grabbed her wand and used one of the first spells in her charms book,

 _"_ _lumos"_ , A bright flash of pure light shone from the wand, held mere inches away from the horse's left eye, the horse almost reflexively lurched to the right. Away from the bright light and crashed straight into the walls.

Which is when they all fell off onto the ground. The horse seemingly disappearing beneath them, leaving the a third child in its place. An animagus perhaps, shockingly young but what else could he be.

Harry leapt off the floor, glancing around, a frenzied look in his eyes. Looking to the world as if the devil himself was at his heels.

"What just happened?" the redhead mumbled. A hand rubbing on the back of his head, having hit himself falling off the horse.

"I think that Harry is phasmophobic."

"He's what?"

"It means he's afraid of ghosts,"

"then why don't you just say that" the redhaid said before turning to Harry "Are you alright mate?"

"There yer all are." A familiar voice came through the halls, it was Hagrid, the man who'd lead them on the boats. "Heard the ghosts frightened yah, Don't ye worry they don't hurt no-one" he said, gently putting a giant hand on Harry's shoulder, "Now come along, Professer Mcgonnagal's been lookin for you lot".

* * *

 **I know that the start of this chapter goes deep into AU-wizard law, but I felt that a while the key does seem suspicious in canon there are about a thousand different ways to explain it, and I wanted to make a simple statement to the readers that this wouldn't be a "manipulating evil-Dumbledore" story. Those things are a dime-a-dozen and I don't feel I could do it. I don't know what part of my writing caused a reviewer to suspect I was planning to write such, but I felt that I needed to get the "Non-malicious-Dumbledore" message out somehow, and I couldn't just assume everyone reads these thick-printed blurbs at the end. Nor could I assume that the reader in question reads One-Eyed Antics. So getting that information out into the open seemed very important to me.**

 **If anyone wonders why the worlds most bigoted ferret didn't make an appearance. Harry lost his scar, the one thing that causes people to recognise him as Harry in the early chapters. As a result there's no gossip of his presence, and no reason for Malfoy to leave his cabin. Don't worry, he gets a chance to humiliate himself later on anyway.**

 **Hagrid is really hard to write, because I'm not a native English speaker so I tend to misspell words, and I have to trust my spellchecker that I'm not messing EVERYTHING up. Meanwhile he speaks with an accent so strong you have to deliberately misspell some words to get it across, which just turns all his lines into a bunch of red-squiggly underlines and makes me feel like everything is wrong as hell.**

 **Also to the Guest-reviewer on the previous chapter, It's called making a likable character, and keeping them recognisable to their source. Canon-Harry would never go around demanding tribute if he could find a way to afford it himself. Meanwhile this Harry would consider that step one of a long path to eventually becoming someone like Voban. If Harry needs something, and he can't afford it he might make demands, but if there's any way for him to do something himself he'd do it. He likes standing on his own two feet, and he also loves feeling a sense of moral superiority to Voban. (Honestly, the latter might have even more to do with his decisions and motivations then "standing on his own two feet")**


	3. Chapter 3: First Lessons

As Hagrid brought the trio into the great hall from a side-door, he waved in greeting to Professor McGonagall, who was standing behind a tiny stool with a first-year on it wearing a particularly large and tattered hat, "Slytherin", the hat shouted into the hall, the child leaping up and running away towards the green-and-silver table.

McGonagall beckoned the three of them over, a grateful nod towards Hagrid and told Hermione to sit on the chair, a single moment of silence "Gryffindor" the hat proclaimed, the red-and-gold table created a virtual wall of sound that almost took the three of them of their feet. The girl running to the table where Neville had kept a spot open,

And it was Harry's turn, the world turned black as the hat fell over his eyes,

"Hmm. Quite strange." a voice came from within the hat, "Just like I expected, one of Her children…" the voice drawled on. "Never sorted a King before…, of course there's a reason for that"

"What?" Harry asked, curiosity piqued.

"Well, usually I look into someone's mind to see which house would fit them best, but with you that won't work". The voice said, Harry nodding in understanding.

"Luckily I've a solution, Longbottom and the Granger girl just now. While not as useful as a peek into your mind I guess I'll make due"

The remark ended in silence, lasting for what Harry felt must be minutes, until Harry ended it.

"You're loyal from what I can tell, I might not know why the ghost scared you such but you clearly cared enough to take your friends along. But your very nature suggests both cunning and courage. It must take both to kill a god…" the hat mused…

"Well then? What will it be" the hat asked, "Hufflepuff, Slytherin or Gryffindor, which do you want to go to?..." the hat asked.

Thinking deeply Harry wondered, he didn't have any bias towards any house in particular. How could he have. He knew their defining traits.

And after what must've been minutes to all watching he decided. He didn't know much about any of the houses, he knew their defining traits. but he also knew the houses didn't teach you those traits, so picking a house because he wanted to be more courageous, loyal or cunning felt wrong to him. So eventually he made his decision on 2 reasons.

Hermione and Neville, the two he'd spent time with on the train searching for the lost toad. If they were in Gryffindor, then that's where he'd want to go as well.

"Gryffindor, please?" "GRYFFINDOR it is then." The world returned to Harry as McGonagall removed the hat from over his head.

Harry barely had the time to mentally process Dumbledore's warning about a "very painfull death" on the third floor before the school broke out in an abominable attempt at song. Harry felt that telling an entire school full of curious children, a quarter of whom self-identified as courageous was an accident waiting to happen, and resolved to have one of his animals on perpetual guard, Probably Hannibal, the buzzard hawk of Artemis, amidst Harry's familiar's it was no doubt amongst the swiftest and would be his best shot at arriving in time if a student decided to investigate this corridor.

He quickly whispered a chant under his breath, _"Moon's favourite, fly true"_. Unheard amidst the cacophony of song.

The hawk materialised in the rafters of the hall, and quickly flew towards the hall to find a perch to spot from.

With a final dismissal from the Headmaster Harry and the Gryffindors followed Ron's older brother Percy to Gryffindor tower, Interrupted only by a poltergeist called Peeves, where Harry quickly closed his bed's velvet curtains and went to sleep.

* * *

Harry loved most of his new classes, learning a new school of magic that seemed not to rely on the favour of this-or-that deity. It intrigued Harry, the notion of magic that didn't rely on one to remain steadfast in the favour of a specific figure who may abandon you at any time seemed impossible to him.

Some classes felt familiar, like on Wednesday evening when Astrology was their field of study, the very first form of magic he'd ever had an interest in, he didn't understand the significance of everything, or how relevant it would be to the wizard's magic but he knew all the constellations by heart from reading his favourite book time and time again.

Then there was Herbology, they taught about a wide variety of magical herbs and plants, some of them downright lethal if mistreated. They reminded him of his Sister's authority, though on a significantly smaller scale. He quickly decided that he'd purchase a spare textbook to send her when he'd have the time, Anything that could inspire his sister to the invention of new techniques or skills would be something she'd appreciate.

History of magic made Harry conflicted. On the one hand the history of this new society was interesting to him, If any class was going to help him find a way to dispel the curse of blindness it was going to be this one. But on the other hand there was a single major issue.

The professor, who droned on and on, and kept mis-remembering the details was far from a reliable source. He quickly found himself and Hermione forming a study group to try and keep up with the class, as well as do their own self-study.

Charms and Transfiguration were very interesting as well, but were not specifically interesting to Harry. These fields felt broad and random in what they could do, and most of the things they could seemed rather useless. What use could someone possibly have for turning tables into hogs? Harry wouldn't know, and McGonagall hadn't been willing to answer.

And then there was Potions. It's teacher was biased and seemed unwilling to teach the students anything at all, including but not limited to basic safety measures. If Harry could he'd have gone straight to Dumbledore and demanded him replaced. While such behaviour would usually feel distasteful to Harry, Snape was just that bad.

But he couldn't. The one time in his life when he wanted to use his authority as a king, and it was with the one group of people who would never believe his claim.

And now that he thought about it, Maybe Snape shouldn't be the only teacher taken of his job, Binns needed to be removed as well, a teacher who couldn't remember their history correctly was not worthy of their position.

Another solution would have to be made. Harry didn't know how yet, but he'd get Snape removed from the position and replaced with a better teacher as soon as possible. Maybe he could go to the Witangemot, they might not keep too close an eye on the land of the blind; but they had remained a steady influence through their contracts with the descendants of Asag, whose divine ancestry had been a great boon to their fortunes.

While Harry hated to order people around like that, he felt that in this case an exemption might be for the better of all involved. The students would get a better education, Snape would get a job he'd actually enjoy, and Binns could finally retire, and Harry would have a greater chance at one day discovering a cure for the blindness.

And finally there was defence against the dark arts, a class that Harry deemed mostly irrelevant, and would've slept through had the smell of garlic not forced him awake throughout. He understood intellectually that it was probably an important class to others, but to someone who'd fought gods it was redundant at best, and insulting at worst.

Aside from classes the rest of Harry's first month fell away into a simple pattern, He'd wake up, do his training, and bond with the groundskeeper about their mutual love of magical creatures.

Over the course of his interactions with the half-giant, he'd quickly discovered that his second authority seemed to have even more benefits then he'd initially considered. Instead of merely summoning beasts, it also allowed Harry to invoke the powers of Buer to command beasts to do his bidding. This he'd figured out when Hagrid had taken him to see some Hippogriffs, who Hagrid commented acted almost unnaturally kind to Harry. Harry soon resolved himself to make a visit to his siblings to investigate the potential in this newfound ability.

And so the first week of Hogwarts passed him by, filled with excitement and chaos in equal measure.

* * *

 **So, that's another chapter done.**

 **I must admit that this has been quite the learning experience, but not in the way I'd expected. While at first I'd expected to learn a thing or two about the struggles involved with balancing canon and headcanon, or the balance between two sides of a crossover. The main thing I seem to have learned is the reason of many personal frustrations.**

 **That being writers who write a thousand different fics at once to the point they stop updating any of them. I never understood it, but now that i've given writing a chance my head just starts to fill with ideas, especially during the research on things, and im constantly like "That's an awesome thing, wont work in this story but it would work greatly for THIS character" and before i realise I've written half a storyline for a BNHA-Campione crossover. (Deku and Ochako are both going to be campione, Deku's theme is Martyr, Ochako's theme'd be angel) and then i run into a gaellic legend, remember the existence of Geiss in Celtic folklore and within an hour of my mind wandering at work i've composed a general authority-set for Lelouch Lamperouge, and am starting to brainstorm that (He'd have a theme of Rebel/Demon).**

 **So hereby, to any and all writers I've ever complained about for making "too many" fanfics, and refusing to finish the ones they have. My apologies, i didn't understand what it was like.**

 **Also, if anyone would be willing to Beta, please PM.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Duel

Of all the classes Harry had been assigned at Hogwarts, Broomflight was the one he'd been most excited for. While every other class was mostly new to him, he'd flown almost as long as he could remember, while his first "flight" if it could be called as such had been the trip to his sister, and hadn't ended in anything that could be regarded as a proper landing, the excitement he'd felt when Miss Ericson gave him the ticket still lingered to this day.

He loved flying, whether it meant getting his swans to carry him, turning into one of his beasts, or turning into a poisonous mist he adored the rush of the wind and the freedom that it gave him.

So when they said he'd be able to learn how to fly a broom he'd been excited, sure his form as a hawk was probably faster, and his avatar of toxic mist more manoeuvrable, but any excuse would work for him. And who knew, maybe with enough money or the right materials a craftsman could make him a broom that was up to his standards. It'd have to wait until his second year, with the ban on first-year brooms, but it'd probably be worth it.

Nodding to himself he made a mental note to look up the craft at a later date.

As Harry looked around himself, he'd been lost in thought while going to the practice field. It seemed the Slytherin's must've arrived before them, Snape's pet-student was bragging about having once flown into a helicopter or something? Either Malfoy was lying or he must've lived shockingly close to an airport for it to happen as often as it did, Harry flew everywhere all the time for years, and he'd barely ever run into anything.

It must've been a couple of minutes of them all standing there listening to Malfoy's "Tall Tales of Tyrannising Teiwaz' Territory", when the teacher finally arrived to start classes. Classes that soon proved disappointingly short, when they ended about 5 minutes in with Neville flying away on an uncontrollable broomstick. And eventually fell from the sky, and had to be taken to the hospital wing.

"look! It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him" Malfoy said, running to pick up Neville's Remembrall, which had clearly fallen out of his pockets in the chaos. And soon found themselves in Malfoy's, clearly intending to keep it.

"Give that back, Malfoy" A silence fell over the crowd as Harry spoke, a forceful tone entering his voice.

Malfoy didn't listen though, "Nah, I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find." The boy looked around, suddenly flying up on his broom, "like this tree."

Which put Harry in a dilemma, on the one hand he shouldn't take his broom, they were all supposed to remain on the ground. But on the other, he couldn't allow someone to so brazenly steal his friends property and get away with it.

So Harry wouldn't, Draco was flying high, but no-where near as high as Neville had fallen from. Also Harry knew that the floor here was probably enchanted to lessen any injuries sustained in a fall.

If Neville had only broken a wrist, then Malfoy would survive a fall from his current height.

So Harry decided to experiment, When he'd ordered his new wand, it'd been an expensive creation, but it contained a little bit of everything. Hoping that in giving it such a wide variety of different divinities it might be able to work in conjunction with his authorities, and any he might gain in the future.

It had was crafted of a variety of divinities, varying from the powers of the sun and moon, to the sky, earth, nature, water and even war, had all been incarnated in one or more of his bestial familiars.

Harry had theorised this would allow him to use it as a medium through which to use his authorities, so long as their nature matched even a single familiar.

And it was time to test his hypothesis, so he focussed on his first authority, hoping that the venomous serpent in his wand would co-operate with it, He'd use a paralysing poison, rather then a deadly one.

A deep purple spell shot out of his wand, carrying the might of a god inside it, and flew straight towards the flying ponce. Who was saw Harry draw his wand, and attempted to swerve out of its way.

He failed, getting clipped in the shoulder while his broom continued on it's intended path away from the spell and into the tree. A crunching noise sounded as Malfoy's head collided with a branch and his now limp and paralysed body fell from the sky, hitting a couple of branches on the way down. And landing face-first into the mud.

It took a few seconds after realising his hypothesis correct, before Professor McGonagall arrived to take Malfoy to the hospital.

* * *

The paralytic spell had worn off in about an hour, and Malfoy was soon back in classes feeling very much humiliated at the whole "flying headfirst into a tree and knocking oneself unconscious" thing.

And he'd blamed Harry, he'd seen Harry grasp his wand in preparation for the spell, and while the spell itself might've been unseen to their classmates he'd quickly concluded Harry responsible for bruising his fragile ego.

So he'd challenged Harry to a midnight duel, hoping to get humiliate the upstart half-blood, and getting him in trouble with Filch.

But Harry was having none of it, he'd insisted that "only a coward fights their battle in the dead of night, So that I can truly show the splendour of my training". He'd also protested Malfoy's suggested rules "And what is this about no contact? Do you wish only to fight from a distance like a craven coward?"

So Draco had two choices, either accept the changed rules of the duel he'd never intended to fight in the first place, or lose face for the second time that day.

So he'd agreed, and pressured his godfather into opening up a room for a public duel.

Malfoy couldn't risk losing face again, and had spent the whole week leading up to the weekend reading up on curses and spells to teach the upstart half-blood his place in their world. He'd even sent a letter to his father asking for any curses he could use to uphold the honour of his family name. getting a short list of suggestions in return,

Harry spent the same week just running around with Hagrid, interacting with the wide variety of magical creatures, and reading books on the crafting of wands while Ron taught him a handful of spells that he'd thought might come in usefull.

* * *

Ron was excited, today was the day his best friend would duel that git Malfoy, He'd been looking forward to it all week giving Harry his admittedly limited advice on how to dodge attacks if he didn't know how to block them. And spending plenty of time with Harry and his bushy-haired friend in the library looking up spells for Harry to use. While Ron might not usually like the library, and Hermione had been quite bossy during their studies, it would all be worth it when that self-absorbed prick lost today.

A single flash of light from the greasy git's wand signalled the start of the duel,

Draco instantly flashed his wand _"Impedimenta",_ A turquoise bolt of magic surging through the air towards Harry, who seemingly vanished into a cloud of smoke, the spell flying on through as the smoke turned back into his best friend standing there completely unaffected.

Harry soon returned spell fire, One of the spells Ron had told him about over the week in an attempt to get his friend to stop lying about with Hagrid's pets and treat this duel a little bit more seriously. He'd remembered seeing it on a documentary on his favourite quidditch team, it'd been used by supporters of the Appleby Arrows. It created arrows that they used to shoot into the air to show support for their team. It'd been banned when a stray shot hit a referee.

Draco leapt to the side, barely dodging the arrow before returning fire with yet another spell, a red bolt that went wide by a wandlength. Harry returned another arrow and at this point Ron would later admit he lost track of any specific spells and incantations.

Because not a single spell successfully hit Harry, he either sidestepped or vanished into smoke, allowing them to slip straight through him before he'd return with even more arrows, no two arrows appeared the same, some where silver others gold, and while Draco successfully dodged most of them, they just ended up hitting the back wall. Some getting stuck down to their feathers, others flying straight on through the wall into the great unknown.

And so the fight went on, Harry shooting arrows with a seeming casual ease, while Draco threw increasingly dark curses and Hexes desperately hoping to get at least a single hit on the fog-formed wizard.

Until eventually a Harry yawned, visibly bored and steeled his resolve, and with a single flick of the wrist summoned a golden arrow through Draco's leg.

"Aaaaurgh!"

A cry resounded through the hall, followed by a loud crumbling noise as the arrow surged through the leg and went on flying the wall behind Draco. Producing a crashing noise as the wall gave up any resistance to gravity. Thick bricks falling onto the floor, as Snape shouted to cancel the duel, announcing Harry's victory. Madam Pomphrey running onto the duelling an enchanted stretcher flying behind her, and left with Malfoy.

Today, Ron decided, had been a good day.

* * *

 **This might be the time for me to address a previous reviewer, I would have responded to them in PM but they reviewed as a guest so I couldn't, I don't know what part of my writing gave the impression that I'd killed off miss Ericson in the plane crash, so let me reiterate: "she found herself with ONE ticket to China" meant that she'd only bought the one, for Harry.**

 **She was never on the plane, I thought I'd made it quite clear that she was willing to do anything she could to get the child-Godslayer as far away from her as possible.**

 **Also, I hoped that my previous statement regarding my own rules and restrictions on the authorities Harry could have were clear on the subtext.**

 **So let me elaborate: Everyone who's important in Campione, will LIVE to see canon. This includes Miss Ericson.**

 **Upon looking into the various spells existing in the Potter Canon, I decided that the one spell that seemed most compatible with Harry's wand was the one that conjured arrows to fire at a target, seeing as his wand was made from the combined divinities of 3 separate archer-deities it'd be a really good vessel to use it through.**

 **Given enough time Harry might learn to impart divine properties to the arrows, using the traces of the divinities it was born from to cast spells capable of wounding even gods. (poison arrows, sunfire arrows, moonlight arrows, Pan's nature domain arrows, Apollo-dragonslayer arrows), but such skills are not currently available to Harry as of yet, it'd take years of training but it's feasible.**

 **Much like canon-wands Harry's the "Wand of the Bowman" as I'll call it (by lack of a better name, if anyone has a suggestion for what to call it I'd gladly take it) is stronger with certain spells then others, specificly spells that tie into the divinities stored in the wand are elevated to the level of the Golgotha spell words, allowing them to harm even gods. And there's a lot of domains stored in there. (Sun, Moon, Earth, Nature, Tracking, Divination, Poison, Dragonslaying steel, Healing, Sky, Sea and War just going from the top of my head).**


	5. Chapter 5: The Troll

Madam Pomphrey had held Draco in a hospital bed for half a week, the arrow had flown straight through his bones and left burned tissue all the way through that had luckily prevented any serious blood loss. But he'd still walked with a constant expression of pain and agony on his face for two days straight.

A pained expression that would only stop at the Halloween breakfast, when an owl carrying a large cylindrical package had arrived at the Slytherin table. After clumsily tearing of the wrapping and bragging to all his friends about how it had to be the broomstick he'd tried to nag his father into getting him, he'd only been further humiliated when the paper fell off to reveal an ornate cane.

* * *

Harry had been kind of distracted in his charms class, his first feather had levitated towards the ceiling with such force that it had quickly found itself flying into the chandelier and burned itself on a candle. Given a spare feather he'd spent a little while learning how to tone down his spells to a more manageable effect, before Flitwick had told him he could use the leftover time in class to read a book or something.

Which was what he'd been doing, he'd grabbed his bookbag and had been about a quarter through a well-worn collection of Purana, when he'd gotten distracted by an anecdote told by Flitwick about the dangers of mispronouncing a spell and the dire effects thereof.

Which had sparked his current train of thought, and obsessive study.

The Bhagavatam, and the brothers Kumbhakarna and Ravana. The latter of whom was described as a "demon king" who'd sought to overthrow the gods. Was it possible that those 9 siblings, where his siblings as well?

This train of thought was quickly ended when he had to attend his next class. Only to find Hermione missing, when ten minutes passed without her presence he grew worried, "Miss McGonigal, May I use the restroom?"

He'd quickly excused himself and after leaving the classroom sent out his hounds to track her down, before returning into the classroom.

* * *

Hermione was crying in the bathroom stall when she heard a scratching sound at the door, carefully opening it she immediately found herself on her behind. Assaulted by a black blur that forced her on the ground. Shocked she threw her assailant off her blindly, only to be overcome with horror when she recognised her assailant.

It was a black furred dog, one of the groundskeeper's many pets. She hoped she hadn't hurt it too much.

As the black Labrador rose from where it landed and calmly approached her, nuzzling her leg as if to comfort her, she saw a pendant hanging from its neck. " _Laelaps?_ "

An excited bark and wagging tail answered her.

"So what are you doing here inside? Shouldn't you be outside with your master?"

A nuzzle and whine, followed by a tongue licking at her tear-stained face.

And that was how Hermione found herself curled up with a black Labrador, facing off a giant troll.

* * *

Ron was sitting in the great table on his own, the know-it-all had failed to show up for dinner. Which meant Harry had quickly taken it upon himself to pack up some meat, potatoes and a pumpkin-flavoured pastry in a brown paper bag, and left the great hall as soon as he'd finished his own meal.

So when Quirrell came barging in babbling about a troll in the dungeon, he'd snuck away from his fellow Gryffindors to warn his best friend and Granger about the dangerous beast.

Running through corridors left and right, almost getting caught by Snape he'd been come rushing towards a loud crash of wood followed by a growling noise and a girlish scream.

Turning a corner in a hurry, he saw Hermione standing behind an attacking troll, a black blur leaping at the beast's club as Harry turned into a giant swan and flew on top of the troll before turning into a pale silver-white bear, using his massive weight to pull the lumbering creature down onto the floor.

"Hermione, Run now while Harry's holding it down!" Ron screamed, seconds before realising that he'd even opened his mouth.

Hermione quickly ran past the lumbering hulk, followed at the heel by a large dog carrying a wooden club. Just in time to avoid the troll as it rose back up, and the silver ursine charged it into and through the walls of the school, the both of them falling down the outside of the girl's bathroom.

"HARRY!" they both turned, worrying about their friend who was currently falling down alongside the lumbering beast. Ron brandished his wand towards the silver blur currently in freefall " _Wingardium Leviosa_ ", the spell didn't seem to work though, Harry continued his descent towards the grassy fields.

Until he transformed, again, revealing yet a FOURTH animagus form? Wings, beak and hooves revealing themselves out of the formerly silver shape.

Weren't people only supposed to have one of those? And now that Ron though about it, weren't they supposed to be normal, muggle animals, not magical creatures like a merlin-be-darned griffin?

Because that was what was flying outside, an actual Griffin. Charging hooves out towards the lumbering troll, which reached out with it's giant palm and grabbed it by the hooves, lurching it in through the air, swinging side to side like one of those muggle musical time-pieces his dad had brought in from work once. He thought they were called "metro-gnomes", though he didn't know what a swinging stick had to do with the gnomes in his mom's yard.

A cracking sound reverbed through the plain as their friends griffin-shape collided head first with a stray rock, it's neck bent at an unnatural angle. Hermione and the dog running towards the hole, leaping out in an attempt to save their saviour.

And they were falling, the girl and the dog. And unlike Harry they probably couldn't fly.

So Ron once again brandished his wand, " _Wingardium leviosa_ ", Hoping against hope that this time he'd pronounced the spell correctly.

* * *

Harry was in pain, the Griffin might've been the wrong choice for this fight. It's strength had always lain in its speed agility and aerial manoeuvrability, not in defence like the boar or bear. And he was currently paying the price for it. His four knees hurt, bent at seemingly impossible angles and his right wing was crushed beneath the weight of his own body.

But he'd endure, he'd just have to take on a new form and he could survive easily, but the figure he saw over the Troll's shoulder had no such abilities. Hermione and Laelaps were currently jumping out the hole his ursine shape had left in the Hogwarts masonry, and descending towards the floor with NOTHING Harry was going to be able to do about it.

He could already see it happen in his minds eye, the girl he'd fought to protect pancaking against the grass leaving nothing but a blood-stained body on the ground. Powerless to do anything to stop her fall towards the ground, the distance between her and him to great and the time it took for him to transform too significant to reach her in time.

Wait? When did Ron get here? Hadn't he been at the feast with the rest of the school?

Well Harry wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, if Ron managed to slow down Hermione's descent then he might be able to reach her in time.

So he turned into a golden stag, agile and quickly and around the lumbering troll hoping to reach his friend in time springing steps charging across the grassy plain and reaching her just in time to catch her on his back.

Carefully he returned to human form, and put Hermione on the floor before turning into his largest form. At its biggest the Caledonian boar could grow larger then Hogwarts itself, towering over its towers, But in doing so he'd cause needless collateral damage, a single footstep would cause tremors, topple trees and drop torches from their sconces inside the school, causing chaos and destruction reaching all the way out to Hogsmeade.

So he merely grew to match his foe, growing larger than the troll he faced and charging at it tusks ahead. The troll bracing itself for the charging beast, it's footing upset by the tremoring footfalls as it attempted to grapple it by the tusks to slow down its charge.

The charge stopped, leaving a 2 metre long track of feet braced in the mud before the boar stopped in its tracks achieving a stalemate between the two giant forces.

A stalemate broken by a torrent of blue fire in the troll's face as Hermione stood wand extended,

The burning flames scorched it's face, disrupting its concentration. Harry lurched his giant tusks upwards the troll flying skyward 10 metres into the grey sky before crashing down under gravity.

Right in the way for Harry's resuming charge, his left tusk lurching and tearing through sinew and flesh, impaling the troll right through the centre of its body.

Blood leaked over the tusk, the troll collapsed. Harry turned back into a human form, only to fall onto the ground tackled in an embrace by Hermione, Laelaps and Ron, who'd managed to find his way safely down during the preceding fight.

"Mate, That was amazing. When did you learn that? Why didn't you use that against Malfoy?"

And as the excitement of the rush of battle settled down in Harry, he couldn't help but wonder.

How was it that these two could see Laelaps, when Dumbledore hadn't been able to. It made sense for Hagrid to, his inhuman giant bloodline giving him a resistance to magic that might have inhibited the blindness somehow, it might've even been that his giant ancestor was itself a divinity that might've mitigated the curse.

But as far as he knew, no such factors were in play here.

So how come Hermione and Ron were both petting Laelaps?

* * *

 **If anyone wonders why it took so long for people to remark on Harry's animals, he doesn't usually summon them inside buildings because they prefer the open air, Hermione and Ron don't see them much, and the few times they've seen them with Harry, he's hanging around with Hagrid and they assumed they belonged to the groundskeeper.**

 **It should be noticed that Hagrid, and other individuals of giant heritage. Have a significant degree of magical resistance, that allows them a certain degree of resistance to the curse of blindness. Which is why he's capable of seeing and interacting with Harry's familiars.**

 **I know that the CANON troll would've died to the bear, but HP-trolls are kind of boring and I REALLY wanted to have a more interesting fight scene, if every fight ends up just "use authority, instant victory" it'd be so boring. So I made the troll a BIT more durable and a tiny bit more intelligent. Harry could've crushed it simply by STEPPING on it as the boar, but Harry believes in fair play and wont do that type of stuff unless absolutely necessary.  
The Caledonian boar is VERRY similar to Godou's in that it's a motherflippin KAJIU at its full potential. It is just a bit more controllable.**

 **I hope that last line came out right? It's meant to be a bit of a "guiding question", a key that might help answer questions on the nature of the blindness. And a lead on how to solve the problem's it poses. But I feel I might've mangled it a bit somehow.**

 **Its been a real learning experience, this writing project. I've stopped writing this chapter half-way through because while doing research on one of the chosen antagonists, I just had this bout of inspiration and for a way in which I can integrate post-Hogwarts Harry into Campione a little, get him to influence the plot. So I had to take a long break to write out and research an additional god.  
I keep realising that there's stuff that I should've thought of ahead of time, like for example: Book 3 involves timetravel, should I keep that? Should I plan ahead for that? Am I a good enough writer to handle timetravel without it becoming total BS?**

 **So I ended up stopping this chapter half-way through writing, to pre-script the timeline to include timetravel, and re-read that timeline like a dozen times to be 100% certain I hadn't created a plothole in the timetravel.**

 **Reviews are appreciated, though details are preferred.**


	6. Chapter 6: Fallout

**100 subs? That's 95 more than I ever expected…**

A few days after the incident with the Troll found both Hermione and Ron leaving the Hogwarts library, Carrying brand new scrolls and spell books under their arm in a silent and introspective stupor, the sole difference between the boy and girl being the nature of their contemplations.

The redhead was both wary and excited about the stories his best friend had told him, though fairly certain his friend had chosen to skip some details for brevity's sake the general gist had managed to impart itself into boys brain. His mate had told him the basics at least,

Gods and Demons, Heroes and Dragons, all the stories his mom told him when she used to put him to bed. All of them existed in the world, alongside magic beyond anything a wizard had seen in centuries. Things his family couldn't see because of some ancient curse, but that the three of them now knew were real.

Magic he could learn, that'd allow him a chance to truly show the world his potential, to exceed the expectations his brothers had set for him.

So as Ron lay himself in his bed in the Gryffindor quarters, he started studying this strange new magic that his friend had talked about.

While Ron walked away from their discussion elated, and with a newfound drive, Hermione was of a different mind about Harry's tale.

A tale of a second society of wizards, also hidden from the world. One whose members had rewritten the history of countries like Japan to their whims, who served beings like this "elder brother" Harry mentioned, a wolfish man who enslaved the souls of the innocent and who cared little for the thousands he had killed, who could turn cities into salt and regularly desolated cities in divine storms all to fuel his passions.

A tale of gods, heroes and demons who could come down to earth whenever they wished and would cause naught but devastation, uncaring about the lives of the innocent. Even as she left the library they might be causing untold casualties the world over, how many of those natural disasters she saw on the news with her parents where caused by them? How many lives lost to these tyrants.

And unlike Harry, there was nothing she could do about it. Harry had stressed that much, how gods couldn't be fought by mortals under normal circumstance. How it'd only been because of a ridiculous and convenient mistake that he'd defeated Serqet. And how he didn't stand a chance against the horse-limbed archer Buer if it hadn't been for his venomous power.

And unlike her friend, she had no such power. A god could destroy her hometown at any time, and there'd be nothing she could do about it.

But even if she couldn't fight a god. At least she could help rebuild in the aftermath.

 **Sorry for the long wait and short chapter, originally this would've included "Harry's big infodump", where he explains the world of gods and kings, but it kept coming out wrong. Mainly because it ended up dialogue heavy and everyone kept feeling a bit stilted in the way they interacted together.**

 **So after a week of trying to make the conversation work, I decided to in-medias-res the conversation and deal mainly with the fallout. It makes the chapter shorter, but I cant include later scenes without totally ruining the "feel" of this chapter, and undermining the importance of Hermione and Ron's revelations.**

 **I decided that Ron would probably take it the best of them, his main problem in canon is not a lack of brains, it's a lack of motivation spawned from his belief that there's nothing he could do to outshine his brothers. The existence of magics more powerful then those known to wizards would probably give him the hope that there might be a chance to be more than just "the youngest son". a source of motivation he'd grasp onto like a drowning man to a life preserver. He'd still be second to Harry but standing out amongst the crowd at all would fulfil his life-long dream, and prevent the kind of jealousy that caused the trio to fracture during GOF.**

 **But where Ron would probably take it as a newfound reason to live, Hermione would probably take it horribly a simple reason: Her moral convictions.**

 **Hermione is shown to believe in fairness, and to be willing to fight for the "little guy" the existence of people like Voban and Lou Hao would shake her to her very core. And the idea that entire armies of mages are incapable of fighting them would really hurt her.**

 **Hermione is going to be in a bit of a slump for now, she'll be ever so slightly depressed at her own smallness in comparison to the forces at play in the world, the text might seem written as to be "I'm going to help rebuild disaster-stricken areas", but it's actually meant to have the subtext of "Im going to distract myself from my own inconcequencial-ness". I hope I pulled it off but I doubt I've succeeded.**

 **If anyone has suggestions for the types of spells Hermione and Ron could learn from the Campione side, I'd love to read them. I've got a few ideas but any ideas are welcome.**


	7. Chapter 7: Hogwarts Staff Meeting

**Sorry for re-update, this morning i doublechecked the chapter made a few final edits and uploaded the chapter, but i forgot to save it before uploading. So i uploaded the faulty version.  
My apologies if you end up getting 2 update notifications.**

November 15th found Minerva McGonigal waking up fearing her imminent migraine, She knew this would happen for a single simple reason: That evening would be the Hogwarts staff quarterly meeting to discuss the happenings around, and running of the school. And while under normal circumstance that amounted to a few mentions of minor incidents, mostly pranks from a duo of redhaired twins. This meeting promised to be anything but ordinary,

So when the meeting inevitably began Minerva conjured up a comfortable armchair and placed a few drops of headache-relief potion into her brandy and waited or Albus to arrive to open up the discussion.

Albus entered the door, wearing yet another garish robe decorated with a thousand tiny broomstick-riders chasing even tinier golden specks. Holding in his left hand a large bottle of champagne, an ornate golden sable in the right hand. A house elf popped into the room and deposited a plate with a model of Hogwarts castle made entirely of champagne glasses on the table. Clearly Albus had something to celebrate, he hadn't worn his quidditch robes since the war had ended, it had always been one of Albus' favourite robes that he'd kept in his seemingly bottomless closet for especially jubilant occasions.

"Good evening everyone, Before we get into the matters you have no doubt prepared, I would like to take chance to pre-empt your usual request Rolanda. As I am pleased to announce that, after years of politics the ministry has finally seen fit to agree to return our budget to the amount we had before the war." The sable slid past the neck of the bottle, and with a resounding pop the champagne flew into the uppermost glass of the astronomy tower, the other towers peaks filling from within until they overflowed champagne cascading down towards the bottom in a waterfall.

"Wait, you mean we finally have the budget for new brooms?" a shocked Rolanda Hooch said, her mouth hanging open wide-eyed, a single hand reaching for a glass from the top of Ravenclaw tower. "In that you'd be correct Rolanda, I look forward to reading your no-doubt well considered recommendations in, let's say two weeks?" a jovial Albus said, reaching out to pull a glass from the headmaster's office, before stepping aside to allow Minerva access to Gryffindor tower. He turned around to face her colleagues "And of course I expect similar recommendations from all of you, I know our previously tight budget has made teaching hard for all of you".

"As a result of our newly returned budget, I am also pleased to announce we'll be able to hire teaching assistants" Albus went on to say "and to once again organise our formerly annual educational excursions, And with 7 years of students each expected to have a different excursion I must regretfully announce that I'll be delegating some of that labour onto you all, while under normal circumstances I'd be more than willing to assist in this matter. I fear I may be much too busy for the foreseeable future vetting applicants for additional staffing positions, as I'm sure you'll understand".

Upon hearing this she put her champagne, and took a sip from her brandy. There it was, the inevitable headache she had come to expect. They were already 2 months into this year and she'd have to organise 7 different excursions, one a month for the remainder of the year, and with no assistance from Albus in the matter. She'd need to find 7 venues, each of them providing sufficient educational value and work out the logistics of getting four dozen children to each of them.

She'd have to further delegate this, the transfiguration's teacher decided. Maybe have every teacher work on organising a single outing, themed around their specific field. It would place a burden on the rest of the staff, but assuming Albus managed to find the assistants he was looking for it would at least be a workable solution.

As Minerva concluded her train of thought, she realised Albus had fallen silent and was currently respectfully awaiting her opinion on the feasibility. So she took another sip and answered with a curt nod. " Now with the budgetary issues addressed, I would like to ask about the incident this Halloween." The headmaster turned to face their resident potions master who stepped forward out of the corner he'd been standing in.

"As you are all no doubt aware," he drawled derisively addressing the gathered professors "Headmaster Dumbledore had requested me to investigate the Hogwarts wards and attempt to find a clue as to how the troll managed to get onto the premises…"

"Luckily for all of us, Trolls infamously lack in subtlety. Which made it a rather simple endeavour to track the path of wanton destruction from the 2nd floor bathroom all the way through the dungeons, where I found a passage leading to an old storage shack whose walls had been shattered into splinters. I then instructed the Hogwarts elves to clean up any and all furniture damaged during the incident and floo-called the department of magical law enforcement…" Severus gestured towards the headmaster who answered with a nod of his head.

"The DMLE have investigated the site, and concluded that the long forgotten storage shed had been ill-maintained, resulting in ward failure." Albus explained, looking towards the rest of the staff. "I've already hired a specialist to give repair the wards, and perform a routine inspection of our school each summer so as to prevent inconvenience to the students." Albus glanced around the room. "Does anyone here have any further concerns regarding the incident?"

Upon hearing this Filius stepped forward, "While I'm pleased to hear the cause of the incident has been identified, and will soon be fixed. Wouldn't it be more prudent to have the inspection over the winter holiday? Most students will be at home, and the few that remain won't be learning anything over the holiday so it shouldn't cause problems."

Inwardly Minerva agreed with Flitwick's assertion. At least in theory, it would make more sense to have the school inspected over the winter holliday, but she knew there was probably a horde of logistical issues involved, she was just about to stand up to explain those issues when Albus did it for her.

"Indeed Fillius, while I agree that would be ideal. I am sad to say it's unlikely to succeed for multiple reasons." Albus asserted, while carefully removing the wrapper from a piece of candy. "Firstly there's the issue of the time, the winter holiday is rather short, and our school is admittedly rather large, and I fear that a rushed inspection might be worse than no inspection at all as it could make us believe ourselves safer then we truly are. Also there's the issue of the students themselves, who in their boundless curiosity might end up hampering the inspection."

"But wouldn't it still be better to at least allow a cursory initial investigation? So that the inspectors already know what to look for come summer?" Pomona opined, "that way we can be sure that any immediate and large-scale threats have been identified while the inspectors are prepared come summer".

Albus only nodded in response, before moving the conversation onto other subjects.

 **Apologies for the long wait between chapters.**

 **And we see the first things changing from canon as Harry's presence causes the Witangemot with a T to influence the Wizangemot with a Z. To explain whats going on in a bit more detail: The T-angemot has agents in the wizarding world, mainly for purchase of reagents and warning them should a Dark lord type situation occur. T-angemot know that Harry's emotionally invested in his heritage, and are trying to ensure he's not disappointed with the wizarding world by having their agents put pressure on the Zangemot to get Harry's education back up to snuff.**

 **Meanwhile Albus and Friends believe the increase in budget to be the result of him finally getting the ministry to listen to reason after they saw the state of disrepair on the storage shack,**

 **End result: Hogwarts (at least as of second year) wont be as terrible as it is in canon. There'll still be adventures but responses will be more competent,**


	8. Chapter 8

One Eyed Alchemy: Christmas Break.

After some consideration, Harry had decided to return to London over the holiday. While initially he wanted to stay at Hogwarts with Ron. Hermione had been quite insistent that he'd come home with her and help tell her parents about the world they now found themselves in.

Not to mention that it would also allow him the opportunity to do a few things he'd been meaning to get around to for a while, while there really wasn't much for him to do at Hogwarts over the holiday. So Harry had approached the headmaster and gotten permission to leave for the holiday.

"So… Any plans for the Christmas holiday?" Hermione's voice broke the silence of their carriage,

Harry cupped his chin for a second, considering his options before answering.

"Well, after I've helped you with your parents, I've got to do my Christmas Shopping, then find some uninhabited spot to spend time with my familiars, as I haven't really given them the exercise and attention they deserve".

"Really…" Scepticism laced her voice as Hermione spoke up. "But don't you spend an hour every morning letting your dogs run free in the forest? Isn't that enough?"

"Well yeah, its enough for the pack," the child-king confirmed, opening a window

The Scottish highlands had given way for farmlands, sheep were grazing in the meadows alongside a couple dozen cows. "You've already seen my pack, and you've seen Hannibal" Harry said, arm held out as a familiar hawk flew in through the window and landed gracefully on his wrist

"Originally an animistic god of the wild, his followers prayed for his blessing. Both hunter and gatherer preyed to him for the knowledge to find their prey, and which herbs to heal with.

Representing the wisdom of the heavens and the blessings of the wilderness, his form was twofold, bearing the head of a man and the legs of a beast, the god thus bore the form of the Sagittarius.

The god who taught natural and moral philosophy, logic and the virtues of wild plants, in time came to be known by the Greeks as the teacher Chiron."

Harry looked Hermione in the eye, giving her the time to process the information as with a silent command, a flock of sheep appeared outside the window, running alongside the Hogwarts express. "As Buer, the god had power over the beasts of the earth. And as Chiron, he received a blessing from the twin gods Apollo and Artemis." Harry stretched out the sentence a little, urging Hermione to figure out the last bit herself.

At some point as he'd been talking, a single deer had come running along outside the window joined by a wolf.

"So your authority allows you to summon their associated animals?" Receiving a nod of confirmation Hermione continued. "So, Laelaps is one of the arcadian hounds, given to her by the god Pan?" Hermione'd barely finished her sentence and Harry's hunting dogs started appearing outside the window. Harry nodded,before with a slight gesture from her companion a set pair of golden swans came flying outside the window,

"Then the swans, they must represent their father Zeus and the form he took during their conception?" Hermione said, face lighting with excitement.

"Probably originally, but more specifically they represent Apollo's connection to the sun. These swan are the ones that Zeus gave to pull his chariot."

"But wasn't it horses pulling his chariot?"

"alongside Griffins and swans, yes."

Another gesture, this time a it was a bear that appeared outside.

Hermione pondered for a bit before answering, her face scrunched up adorably as she tried to go over both their legends in depth, until eventually. "Callisto!" a playfull shout, "Who she turned into a bear as punishment because she broke her vow of chastity".

"Partially correct." Harry nodded, mentally awarding her points in what they were quickly coming to regard as a game. "But the origin lies in her name. "Artemis" from the Greek "árktos" or bear."

This time the animal appeared inside the cart, a small snake wrapped around Harry's unoccupied wrist.

"That one's easy, Apollo's serpent representing both his nature as "medicus" the healer, and the dragon Python who guarded the Delphic oracle." Hermione answered.

"You're mostly correct. While it does indeed represent his nature as a healer, as well as his nature as a god of prophecy, Let me ask you something: How does Python relate to Apollo?"

"Well…? I think he killed it didn't he? Shot it with his bow? So that would be his nature as a hero-god? Apollo Virtuoso?" the bushy-haired witch guessed correctly,

As the train continued its way towards the King's Cross, the window's view would fill itself with beasts, a swarm of locusts, a flock of sheep, a herd of cows, swarms of rats and even a large turtle. Whiling away the hours, blissfully unaware of the events that where occurring elsewhere.

* * *

It was a warm day in Tula de Allende, a municipality located in the valley of Mexico. Its citizens went about their day as normal unaware of the two figures meeting at the banks of the river Tula.

The first of these two figures was a man wearing a ragged cloak, holding nothing to discern himself by besides a cane in one hand and dagger at his hip concealed by his heavy coat.

But where the first would look to all the world as nothing but a poor beggar, the other would stand out anywhere, Coated head to toe in emeralds, the second figure was deformed, his feet were bent backwards, his hands covered in boils, but most inhuman it's was its canine head, empty sockets gazing out onto the robed figure.

"Traveler," The sky rumbled as the hound spoke, "For what reason have you sought me out?"

"I have come to offer a trade," The robed figure answered. A hand gesturing to the side as a silver spectre of a woman came into being. "I am partaking in a most enjoyable competition with a particularly cunning mortal. A contest in which the both of us, are to hide a treasure belonging to another-" before the hound interrupted him, a tinge of excitement audible beneath the rumbling tone."And how, pray tell would one win this competition?"

"The victor shall simply be the one who retakes their treasure first." The man answered, only to see his counterparts shoulders fall in disappointment. "And how would this contest involve me then?"

It took a few seconds for the wanderer to answer, carefully considering his words. "I'd ask you to guard a treasure, to keep it out of their hands on my behalf as I venture to retrieve mine."

"And why would I help you with this game? What reason would I have to grant you this favor?"

Upon hearing this, the thief reached into his ragged robe and pulled out two small orbs the size of a marble. "I would return to you what you have lost."

The blind monstrosity turned it's empty head towards the spheres. A wicked smile upon its face, and barked a roaring laugh filled with joy.

A single nod, and handshake later, the two gods parted ways. The thief headed westwards ready to enjoy a centuries old competition, the hound headed northwards, accompanied two eyes gazing on the female spectre that accompanied it on its journey.

* * *

After visiting the Granger household, where Harry'd helped convince Hermione's parents about the world they'd found themselves in. Followed by a quick meeting with the Witangemot, not to be confused with the Wizangemot, where he had requested a copy of all studies into the curse of blindness. Harry had decided to do do some Christmass shopping in Diagon Alley over the holliday.

The streets where alight with a thousand little dancing lights, not merely bulbs on a string but actual orbs of magical light flitting about the street as he walked from store to store browsing the windows before stopping by a familiar storefront.

"Ollivanders, Makers of fine wands since 382 BC." It was a small and humble store, showing little signs of it's age except a few cracks in a wall or two that were nonetheless not detrimental to it's overall stability. It was hard for Harry to believe that this humble store had been around for over two millenia. Two thousand years, it was a scope of time Harry could scarcely imagine. Even his older brother, was only in his third century. Harry briefly tried to imagine it, living to such an age, watching kingdoms rise and fall.

With a breath he shook the thoughts out of his head and reached for the doorknob and entered inside into the musty air of the store.

lines of boxes stacked rows of the shelves in the empty store, as in the back he heard a set of muffled footsteps coming closer until eventually an old man stepped out from behind the counter.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, Here to finish up your custom order I presume?" Ollivandr asked, receiving a simple nod of confirmation as his answer. "I must admit it I found this job quite curious indeed," The elderly man went on. "Curiousity and excitement warring in his voice as he bent down to retrieve two small boxes from beneath the table.

The first wand, was fourteen inches long, crafted from brown laurel wood and Python's own scales. And was to be carved with a dragon laying beneath the sun.

The second wand was shorter, measuring 10 inches and three quarters. It was white along it's willow shaft, containing at the core a single strand of bear's fur. It too would be engraved, this time to depict a crescent moon, and a bear wandering beneath it.

Harry had originally commissioned the two of them in spring, having asked Python for an oracle to determine what he'd need for school that year. Over the course of spring and summer he'd been quite curious as to their purpose, why Python had recommended their creation.

"Could I have these wrapped please?" Harry said, as he reached out to pay the owner. "They're presents."

"Mr. Potter, I do hope you understand…" the proprietor went on, no doubt lecturing him on how unlikely it would be for these wands to properly function for his intended recipients. Harry tuned the man out though, and after choosing his colour of wrapping papers (Midnight blue with a silver ribbon for Hermione, Sky blue and a gold ribbon for Ron) Harry left the store gifts in tow.

* * *

Ron found himself in a darkened Gryffindor common room, the world felt hazy around him as he rose from his bed. A glance out the window revealing a sunless sky. "Blimey..."

A set of footsteps splashing through a puddle outside the common room caught his attention, sluggishly he ran towards the door and opened it a little, carefully peeking through the gap he saw a black hooded figure, running through the halls. He didn't know why but he had a strong sense, resonating to his core that he had to follow the man.

Carefully he opened the door fully and stepped through into the darkened corridor. There was no sign left of the hooded figure just an empty hallway lit by candlelight revealing a single puddle of red liquid and red footprints leading around a corner, that he carefully followed around the corner.

He followed the prints around what must've been a thousand corners, up and down the winding staircase until he found himself in front of a wooden door, unlocked and opened. Opening the door he saw a large hound, slumbering on the floor as it listened to a the harpsong resounding through the room. The red prints continued through a trapdoor in the floor, So Ron did the only thing he could and followed them through, tripping over a set of withering vines he found himself in an empty room.

The room for all intents and purposes must've had a roof, but if there was one he couldn't see it through the raging locust flying up above his head. He tried to run across the room as fast as he could, finding a key hanging from a broomstick next to the door he turned the lock and continued along the red-stained path.

The path continued into a dark room, where a legion of white-plated soldiers with eyes burning as the sun stood guarding in front of yet another door. Sneaking across the outskirts of the room, Ron found a pitch black horse and got an idea, he climbed into the saddle and charged across the battlefield. Storming through the door.

The horse came to a halt, and refused to move, so Ron dismounted and followed the red path further, through a graveyard. Glancing at the headstones he found a few hundred names he didn't know and amongst them before arriving at a few he recognised located beneath a barren ash: " _Neville F. Longbottom_ ", " _Harry J. Potter_ ", and " _William A. Weasley_ " lied there in the ground.

And with a scream that would wake the dead Ron lurched up from the nightmare.

 **Sorry for the long exposition in the train, it is just that this wouldn't feel like a campione-crossover without long explanation on the history of a god, and the origin of their powers. And without an authority like Godou's sword this was the best place to put it. Also I needed to at least have someplace where Harry talks about his authorities, and can talk about the varied amount of divinities involved, as well as bonding over what amounts to a playful competition as Harry tries to summon a familiar Hermione can't explain, while Hermione becomes more familiar with the weird logic that powers a gods authorities. Which will become a vital skill later.**

 **So, the bit where two gods met was awkward as hell to write. Trying to give personality to two OC's and write convincing dialogue for the both of them just isn't my forte. I hope their identities aren't too obvious or people not reading One Eyed Ascencion. And I hope that it's enough to count as "foreshadowing" their true identities, without downright spoiling it.**

 **Yes I know that the building itself probably isn't that old, its probably been destroyed and rebuilt a few times, Harry's a kid though and kids are stupid enough that this seems like the kind of misunderstanding a kid could have, thinking that the building must be as old as the family company stationed there.**

 **Yes, Harry uses the powers of Python to do his school shopping, as well as his christmass shopping. Ron was going to need a new wand eventually come the second book anyway,**

 **Ron canonically seems to have minor-precognitive powers, so I decided to play that up a little by giving him a wand containing Python's scales, which would in time give him increased abilities in the "prophet" department. Unfortunately prophetic dreams are often cryptic, and rarely about a pleasant experience.**


	9. Chapter 9: Of Gifts and Beasts

**As promised: I will write the names of mentioned familiars beforehand, Anise is a white-furred puppy born from Pepper who is one of the Aegipan hounds.**

The first thing harry experienced when he woke up in the morning, was the warm embrace of the fine linen bedding, accompanied by the distant sounds of christmasmusic playing from the next room over, where a family of four were spending their Christmass. The hotelroom that the Witangemot had supplied him with was decorated with tinsel and glowing lights, and as he left his bed he saw a stack of presents beneath the tree.

After making a quick call to roomservice to order his breakfast, the youngest king excitedly started to make his way toward the waiting pile. After a quick inspection Harry sorted the pile into three different stacks.

The first stack contained unsigned packages. He'd probably wait with opening until he had the chance to inspect them for magical traps and the like. While his Campione status might protect him from most magical attacks there were always ways around them that a sufficiently devious or powerful individual could exploit, and he wasn't about to make himself an easy target for some trickster-god.

The second stack contained the presents signed by his Hogwarts friends. It was bigger then the former but didn't compare to the third. And upon unwrapping proved to be mostly sweets and small trinkets.

The third, and most important stack of presents came from members of the wider supernatural community. His elder sister had given seen fit to give him a brand new silver Ji, which she'd commissioned from the Goblin nation. Meanwhile the History Compilation Commision had sent him a handful of wizarding fotoalbums , contained within pictures of Pepper's puppies that currently life open on his bedpost, A giggling voice filling the room as a brown haired Miko playfully wrestled with Anise.

Glad to see that they were doing well he moved on through the stack, reaching a large manilla folder, "Investigations into the Land of the Blind", was written in big letters across it's front. As Harry opened the large envelope he heard the clock strike on the wall. "Hmm… Guess I'll have to read it on the Express." Harry put all his presents into three separate compartments before rushing towards the station.

* * *

As Harry and Hermione stepped off the Express, joined up with Ron in the crowd and got into one of the carts. As the ghostly-looking horses pulled them along the castle road, they exchanged both greetings and presents amongst each other.

After pulling his brand-new Weasley sweater over his head, and putting Hermione's present into his trunk. Harry pulled out the stack of unidentified presents, cast a few spells on the packages and deemed them safe to unwrap.

Most of the pile turned out to be nothing but candy, sweets and minor trinkets, bet at the bottom of the pile, buried beneath the load of chocolate frogs and flavoured beans shared with the three companions, there lay a single parcel wrapped in brown paper,

Ripping through through the wrappings, they found a silver parcel made that shone like a fine satin cloth wrapped up in twine.

"Go on…" Hermione almost bounced in place, evidently she'd been curious about the parcel all the way from London. "Put it on already."

Casting a wandless cutting charm at the bindings, Harry grabbed the parcel and quickly unfolded the rough woollike fabric, revealing a large array of muggle candies that were quickly divided amongst the trio.

After they'd eaten their way through the pile of Kitkats and fruit-flavored Mentos, they found a piece of paper attached to the silver cloth:

" _Your father left this in my possession before he died, It is time it was returned to you._

 _Use it well_

 _A very merry Christmas to you."_

Harry looked at the strange wrappingcloth around his candy, trying internally to find its significance when suddenly Ron spoke up:"Wait a bleedin' minute… is that?"

"What?"

"It's an invisibility cloak." Ron said, as if that somehow explained everything.

"But we can see it," Hermione said.

"Well of course, He needs to put it on first…"

And Harry did so, Hermione's jaw dropping open as the boy vanished from sight.

"Did it work?" the now seemingly empty bench asked its two compatriots. "Am I gone yet?"

The two perfectly synchronised nods told Harry all he needed to know, quickly removing the cloak. There was no way they weren't going to have fun with this.

* * *

Harry Potter was running rampant throughout Hogwarts, doing all he could to evade his unseen attacker as spells struck him from unforeseen angles at seemingly random intervals, a fifth-year Ravenclaw student fell over into a wall on Harry's right side alerting him to his assailants' presence down the hall, he quickly lashed out with his arms grabbing one of the castle's many suits of yanked it into the spell's path. Turning burnished steel into a cobalt blue shade, He dashed left on the first crossroads.

The rules of their improvised game were simple: Hermione and Ron would both be sharing the cloak. And would attempt to get a surprise attack on Harry. Every time Harry evaded or blocked their attacks he'd score a point. But If they managed to hit him with a colour-changing Charm they'd get a point instead. Ron would be trying to turn his clothes into a shade of green, where Hermione would try for Blue instead. To ensure they'd all be able to keep score. First to get ten points would win.

Harry was currently in the lead with eight points, Hermione and Ron were both tied with three points each.

To be perfectly honest, the game was kind of rigged. If they'd had a second cloak Harry would probably be far behind by now. Most of the points had been gained because his two pursuers couldn't had to move together as one, but were unable to properly communicate non-verbally. Resulting in some catastrophic failures, like the time when Harry'd arrived at a T-shaped intersection, and rather than take turn he'd crawled into the rafters and hid.

Hermione had clearly attempted to move left, where Ron had ran right. Ron must've had a better grip on the cloak though as Hermione had just walked out of hiding as a result.

She'd quickly got back underneath the cloak but not before Harry'd tumbled out of the rafters laughing at her shocked face.

Back then he'd quickly made his getaway laughing in his blue robes.

Clearly they were having trouble trying to move in silent unison. And it had been the only reason Harry'd been able to stay ahead in this fight at all. As he dodged between the ghosts, armors and occasional students wandering the halls.

Crashing into, and past professor Quirrell carrying a large stack of homework causing sheafs of paper to scatter across the hallway Harry turned left into a corridor.

Only to come face-to-face with a dead end and a locked door.

He needed to find a way to evade his pursuers, he couldn't go back as they were still fresh on his tail and he couldn't go forward. So he did the only thing he could, turned into a small gartersnake and crawled into a suit of armor to hide, hopefully they'd see the empty hallway and conclude he must have gone another way.

What seemed like an eternity passed in utmost silence as Harry sat coiled in the cold metal shell. Had they entered the hallway yet? Were they still there? Was there any way for Harry to know wether they'd made it through yet?

Until finally, Ron and Hermione both came around the corner without their cloaks.  
"Harry mate, we know you're in here Professor Quirrel saw you run in here. You've won mate."

"I won?" he asked, turning back into a human and removing the helmet from his face? "I still have two points left though?"

"We both accidentally charmed professor Quirrell" Hermione said "We're lucky he was in a pleasant mood or we'd-."

"It was bloody brilliant mate" Ron cut her off "His green turban turned green and his face was blue. You should've seen it mate." He laughed as he started to help Harry out of the armor.

"It's not funny Ronald" Hermione injected "We could have been in serious trouble. If it weren't for his good mood we would have gotten detention." Ron shrugged her concerns off though.

Stepping out of the heavy metal armor, Harry's honed battle instincts flared.

"Mate you alright?" Ron said as Harry stiffened.

That's when, with a loud crash, the door at the end of the hallway burst open, revealing only darkness behind it. Three pairs of eyes the size of teacups gazed through the darkness and moved towards them.

As the large figure pounced through the doorway towards the trio, teeth bared as if to devour them Harry grabbed his friends instinctually placed himself between them and the monstrous beast. Magically calling the Ji he'd received that morning back into his hands. Assuming a martial arts stance with which to fight. With a single command he felt his oldest authority come to him and cloaked it with the most potent venom he could think.

As the large beast burst through the doorway, breaking its stone arch into dust and rubble the light shone on it to reveal it's large form. Three canine heads. A Cerberus.

The beast was closing in fast, but with only a foot to spare the chain around it's collar reached its limit and pulled tight.

Realising the danger over, Harry dropped the Ji and turned to his friends. "Are you alright?" Ron was lying on the floor, mouth agape. Hermione next to her grasping her chest and breathing heavily.

"Just shock mate…"

"Good…"Carefully Harry turned back to the large dog currently taking up most of the hallway. Stretching his arm out and touching the beasts middle snout. Rubbing it's large nose.

Its mouth opened in response, large tongue lolling out and slathering the young royal in thick slobber.

In his peripheral vision, Harry could see the looks of incredulity on Ron and Hermione's faces as Harry made nice with the large, probably-man-devouring beast. So he offhandedly commented "Im good with beasts." As an explanation, as he reached out to touch the giant's collar to check wether it had a name. finding it he continued his explanation "And Fluffy here doesn't seem to be an exception."

 **This Chapter took a bit of time to write, mostly due to home-renovations and the fact that I still suck at dialogue.**

 **Harry has no use for an invisibility cloak, as he can already turn both invisible and intangible at will through his poison-avatar, so it only made sense he'd lend it out to Hermione and Ron to share between them. It's still technically HIS but he won't use it.**

 **I found myself agreeing with some writers, that returning an object that is legally his inheritance to Harry doesn't count as a Christmas gift. So I added a tiny gift alongside it in the form of a heap of candy.**

 **I Kind of hope I managed to fool at least one person with the Cerberus. There's no way that Dumbledore or Hagrid would allow it inside the castle unrestrained.**

 **Originally I'd planned something more for this chapter. But after 17K words I felt that this just made more sense to be one chapter, and for the rest to be moved to the next.**

 **Please leave your reviews. It really helps me to know what Im doing right and wrong.**


	10. Chapter 10: Of Things to Come

One Eyed Alchemy Chapter 10.

The roar of thunder shook the heavens, as Ron jerked upright. His best mate gripping his shoulders and shaking him with a fervor. The voice coming from his friends mouth muddled and unclear to the Weasley's ears but imparting a sense of importance nonetheless. _"-ogs-de"_ the redhead barely made out as he was pulled along through misty yet familiar halls.

A set of large doors opened out into a misty field, a dark night illuminated only by an occasional flash as the sky shouted booming thunder, wetness staining the silver cloak that Harry threw at him. Ron's lips moved, to speak words unknown to himself as they went uphill toward the looming darkness.

His bare feet felt the wet grass give way for muddy roads as large square-shaped figures loomed around them in the white cloudy space. The sound of a length of steel striking the earth as a dog howled in the distance. The earth shook as the mud burst forth into life, And six glowing eyes looked at the pair running through the rain. Muddy words shouted at him as a silver object was thrust into his hands. Throwing him back into a puddle.

The jaws closed around Harry…. And Ron screamed.

The cold January air flowed over Harry's skin, and the diamond encrusted heaven stretched out above his head as he sat cross-legged on one of Hogwarts towers. The cooing of the messenger birds in the owlery, and the chirping crickets in the woods guiding his breaths as he calmly read through chapter seven of "The standard book of Spells". His wand tracing the patterns in the tome.

Putting the tome down in front of him, he repeated the spell on the book. And silently repeated the movements with his wand until after a handful of repeated motions the tome lifted itself off the ground. A swish of the wand cancelled the spell and the young king continued his movements once again. Feeling his magic as it swirled through the ether and bound the bindings to his whim. Closing his eyes to concentrate as he felt the book lift itself again. He cancelled the spell and started over once again. Until eventually it would lift on the first wave every time.

Putting his wand aside, and synchronising his breathing with the owls cooing in the distance he continued focussing on the energies within his chest, reaching out in utmost silence as he attempted to windlessly grip the book, and slowly attempted to release it from the worlds grip.

"AAAAAAARGHHHH!"

Only to be interrupted as a shout pierced the heavens, the cooing owls scattered through the skies and the king half-jumped up, only to trip on his still-folded legs. Colliding face-first with the rooftiles. Quickly turning into a hawk he flew down his bedroom window and landed on his friends bedside before returning to a human shape.

"Morning Ron, do you know-"Harry asked as he was interrupted by a set of arms squeezing him at his center. Causing him to startle as he looked at Ron's face for the first time noticing some slight bags beneath his eyes. "Ron, What's wrong mate?"

"Nothing, Just a bad dream…" a sleepy Ron responded. "it's nothing but a bad dream" already starting to put on his Hogwarts uniform to ready himself for the day.

"Ron… Tell me honestly, how long has this been going on?" He grasped his friend by the shoulders.

"About three weeks maybe, must've started 'round the holiday?" the redhead answered, as he pulled on his pants and picked his wand from the bedside desk. Only for Harry's hand to snatch his wrist half-way through

"Ron, I think-" Harry tried to speak, only to be interrupted when Neville's curtain moved from his bed. "We'll talk about this after class allright?"

"Fine by me." Harry released his partner's wrists, and proceeded to ready himself for breakfast.

Ron's potions class flew by surprisingly quickly that morning, interrupted only by a sneering Snape correcting Seamus on an a badly minced root and Draco's failed attempt to discard a filthy skin in Harry's cauldron. And the trio soon found themselves in the Hogwarts library together. Their table covered in a variety of tomes. Hermione was currently leafing her way through a heavy leatherbound issue of " _Slumbering Sights; a treatise on the symbology of visions_ ". While Ron sat there with a blank look on his face.

"You're a see-er Ron.", the words his friend had said echoed through his shocked mind as he wrote into the notebook his friend had supplied him with. Writing down the dreams he'd had over the weeks since his friend had given him his new wand, Or at least writing down the two dreams he could remember.

"I think the first dream might be the most important…" the bushy haired witch said, glancing up from the heavy book, "Last night's dream might just have been a nightmare, or a long-term prophecy. But the former has to be a real vision."

At this his emerald-eyed friend turned towards Hermione. A baffled expression on his face that quickly resolved itself. "Because of Fluffy on the third floor." His mate said as if that made any sense whatsoever.

"Yeah, Fluffy did scare my pants off." He admitted, one arm rubbing his neck in shame.

"No Ron, I mean how you had no way of KNOWING Fluffy was in the castle. Yeah your experience might cause nightmares but it wouldn't cause nightmares before you know about it. That's proof the first dream is a genuine vision." She said as she turned around another page,

Honestly, Ron was still a bit disbelieving about the whole "prophetic vision" idea, the notion that he of all people might be a see-er was honestly ridiculous. But Hermione had a valid point that he really hadn't kown about the dog beforehand, so for now he was willing to go along with it.

"Unfortunately, most of the things from your dream are weird, incredibly ominous but also quite non-specific." She went on, only to go silent for a bit. "Well… most of the dream, the ending seems very specific". There it was, the elephant in the room, the one thing Ron most wanted NOT to discuss.

"Are you sure you don't remember more names?" His mate said in a shockingly nonchalant voice.

"I mean there we're more, but I didn't recognise any." He attempted to shrug off. "just the three."

His mate went silent for a bit now, eyes flicking to the corner of the library where their roommate was readying his copy of " _One thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ ". "Do wizards have phonebooks?" his friend asked after a little while. "Maybe if we can get you a list of names, you'd recognise some. That way we might find a pattern in the names."

"What's a phonebook?"

"It's like a public registry, with peoples names addresses and contact information" Hermione summarised. Annoyed at Ron's ignorance of all things muggle.

"You mean like the Floo Registry? There's probably a copy around here." He said, gesturing towards the library's many book-filled shelves. "would honestly surprise me if it wasn't."

"All right then, You continue trying to remember any details. Hermione continues her reading. And I'll try to find a copy." Harry said in a tone that brooked no room for argument, as he stood up and disappeared between the shelves.

In Harry's opinion, there were far too many books in this library, while intellectually he understood that there was only a single librarian. And that organising their shelves might be less important for more experienced wizards who could just summon the book they wanted on a whim. The lack of organisation in these shelves was starting to feel like a personal offense to him. A casual glance at the shelves told him that most of the books were put in seemingly at random with little to no care for any organisational structure he could recognise, books on merfolk were shelved right next to books on goblin history, which itself would be next to a book on constellations (the latter of which he'd added to his own ever-growing pile). And he had honestly this whole deal was becoming quite exhausting.

Luckily for him, he distantly heard the lock on Madam Pince's personal office turn, signalling the end to her breaktime. Deciding to put his pride in the matter aside, Harry turned around to ask her help.

Only for the pile of books in his hands to end up scattered all over the floor as he collided with the oversized form of Hagrid. Bending down to pick up his books, and stammering out a half-hearted apology for his clumsiness Harry's eyes fell upon an interesting title. " _Dragon_ _Species of Great Brittain._ " That book clearly hadn't come from his own pile. A further look at the various books strewn about revealed a variety of other books on related topics.

"Mister Hagrid? When you're done with these books, could you lend them to me?"

"Interested in dragons are yeh? Ah what am I sayin' course yeh are. Magnificent beasties aren't they" the man said dreamily, his overly large hands slamming into Harry's back, almost making him drop his books a second time. The giant looked over personal stack for a second, before picking out the slimmest book. "I reckon' that I'll finish this one here in a day or two, if yeh want yeh could prob'ly pick it up t'night?"

Politely accepting Hagrids invitation, Harry flagged down the librarian and returned to his friends table books in hand.

"No Ronald, put that down, the Tuatha should be first"

"Hey guys, I found the registry" Harry handed the book over, "Well in all honesty, Madam Pince found it for me, but what matters it we found it. What are you arguing about?"

"Currently? Trying to find a correct order in which to research Ron's visions." His bushy-haired companion answered.

"I still don't get why we need an "order" at all, can't we just start?"

"Because Ron..." Hermione said in a tone of voice that made clear her exasperation. "There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of gods out there. And there's no way we're going to find them ALL if we just pick up books at random. We need a system to ensure we don't waste time with the same god twice."

"Then let's just do it alphabetically right?" Ron shrugged, to Hermione's growing anger. Seeing that this situation was about to explode, and not wanting to anger Madam Pince, Harry decided to come to Hermione's help.

"That wouldn't work Ron, not unless we first had a full list of every god who'd ever lived. And even then it would be a major waste of time."

"See Harry gets it," Hermione approved. "If the god was just completely random, then order wouldn't matter. But this heretic god wants whatever it is in the 3rd floor corridor. Which gives us a lead."

"But we don't even know if my dream involves a god at all, and what lead?"

"Knowledge Ron. Whomever it is, they know about whatever is up there, they're invested in it. Which means it's more likely to be a local god. Hence starting with the Tuathe de Danann and other Celtic myths." Hermione nodded in affirmation, before taking over reaching for a large piece of Parchment and inking her quill.

"So we start with the major gods… and first write down each and every name we come across like so," Hermione wrote " _Danu_ " at the top of the list as an example, followed soon by " _Lugh, Dagda, Fall_ " and " _Nuada_ ". "Then we study their individual legends, writing down all names we come across as well."

Hermione grabbed yet another piece of parchment this time, and on it created a series of rows with the aforementioned names, and columns with such lables as " _Hound_ ", " _Lyre/Music_ " and " _Locust_ ". "Then we write their names in the first column here and mark each field that is represented in their legend."

"And in doing so we'll develop a list of the most likely contenders for your vision." Harry finished. "That's a good plan Hermione."

"But that'll take ages, What if by that time..."Ron drawled off for a bit. Before continuing" And we still need to keep up with regular studies, this could take years!" Ron almost yelled, earning a stern shushing from Madam Pince.

Smaragdine eyes pierced Ron's; "Well, we best started then right?"

 **This chapter took a little while, because to write Ron's Prophetic dream sequence, I really needed to make certain I had the subject of the prophecy lined out already. Which meant making sure I knew exactly what I wanted to do there. Be aware that the dream sequence isn't going to be relevant for this year yet. It's a long-term prophecy that will become increasingly clear as Ron grows into his own oracular powers. So it's largely unimportant right now, besides for alerting Harry that Ron has oracular power, meaning they can actually start to plan around it now.**

 **I deliberately attempted to harken back to Hagrid's famous "You're a wizard Harry" line in Ron's revelation. To hopefully establish how world-breaking it is from the characters perspective. To Harry that line was a beacon of hope in the darkness, the answer to his every prayer. And to Ron this revelation is much the same, it's just a slightly different prayer. (Harry wanted to be accepted, Ron wanting to be special. I hope it worked as intended but I suspect it might come across as more derivative?**

 **Once again, my personal nemesis Hagrid returns. And its still hard as hell to write him because of the heavy accent and having to balance accent-representation with legibility. Really hope no ones offended by my attempts at the accent.**

 **Currently proto-scrypting a RWBY crossover, got a Poll up to help figure out who should accompany Jaune. (No guarantees that nr.1 becomes it. Or that it ends up influencing it in the long run.)**


	11. Chapter 11: Of Stones and Hounds

**One Eyed Alchemy Chapter 11. Of Stones and Hounds.**

As Harry and friends walked across the woodland path towards Hagrid's hut, crickets chirping in the grass, the topic's once-more turned towards Ron's newfound visions. Their initial research had turned up only a single most likely contender. The demigod Chu Chullain, Son of the god Lugh and half of their current topic of discussion.

Ron had managed to stubbornly convince himself of the gods identity, arguing that he fit the visions perfectly. And Harry could see where Ron was coming from.

Taken individually, almost every aspect of Ron's vision was accounted for in the Hound of Ulster's legend. The puddles of red liquid? Blood, a simple universal symbol of both violence and life. The hound and music? The demigod was known mostly for his connection to dogs, and had been raised by a bard.

The strange army of sun-eyed warriors? He was the son of the sun, and famously had inhuman otherworldly eyes.

The black Horse? Hermione's leading argument against Celtic figures in general as they ascribed the beast to the sun rather then the darkness of the underworld they represented in certain European nations, would be the horses that drew the gods chariot, black and grey respectively.

To be perfectly honest, Harry'd almost been swept away in Ron's argument… And had privately started focussing himself on the creation of specialised venoms to use against the god, just in case Ron was right. But had in the end sided with Hermione on the matter for a simple reason.

Amergin, the so-called "bard" that he'd been raised by, had upon further research turned out to have been a poet instead. And while not unlikely for Amergin to have been a god of both, It had thrown in just enough doubt for Hermione to convince Harry to continue their search, and to start breaching out to other mythologies.

Which was why Hermione had almost walked into a tree multiple times, her nose stuck deep in a book as Harry placed a hand on her shoulder to steer her out of the way of any further obstacles.

Looking over Hermione's shoulder, The book was filled with a beautiful illustration of a man, carrying the leaf-gold image of a lyre, followed by a female figure through a darkened cave.

"Orpheus"

The son of Apollo, who's name derived from darkness, who perfected the lyre and who travelled through the netherworld. Who sang songs which had power over Hades, who's favoured beast had featured prominently in the dream.

Both theories admittedly had a lot going for them, but neither seemed to describe the dream perfectly. Leading to his friends current argument.

"Ron, I'm telling you the graveyard is just meant to represent the underworld."

"And why, would my brother Bill, who may I remind you is currently in bloody Egypt, be in the Netherworld?"

"ENOUGH!" Harry shouted, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Im sorry, but can you both please calm down? We're not even certain the visions refer to a god at all, so there is no reason to get this heated up over it.

And either way, My contacts within the Witangemot have been looking into both those options at my request. And agree that neither is likely."

Ron and Hermione both looked a bit ashamed of their heated temperaments, but both seemed unwilling to apologise. But that was fine with Harry who just went on.

"In regards to Orpheus,"" Harry said, taking the book from Hermione's hands and handing her a stack of paper that his raven had delivered to him earlier that day. "While you are right that he shares a lot of domains with the vision. Historical records show the arrival of a heretic god in December 1979. Who's mere presence caused oracles the world over to go insane, and caused reports of unnaturally darkened skies by various Greek associations. While proof of this gods identity remains nonexistent, the various supernatural phenomenon were centred around the isle of Lesbos, the city of Dion in Pieria amongst a variety of other sites associated with the exploits of the Heretic God Orpheus.

While no living person bore witness to the events that played out, and the wording varied between oracles. They all had similar themes, referencing a dark being who falls by one similar to them. The current leading theory is that the Heretic god was in fact Orpheus, and was slain either by Eurydice, or his brother Linus."

"So seeing as he was driven back into his legend less than a century ago, we can rather safely assume it wasn't him." Harry said as the woods opened up to reveal Hagrid's hut.

"And while I would love to talk in detail about the Hound, I think it would be quite impolite to keep Hagrid waiting, wouldn't it?"

Looking at his friends to see their slightly miffed, but ultimately agreeing expressions Harry reached out and knocked.

Hagrid's little wooden hut was an almost the absolute opposite to the grounds he kept outside, by which Harry meant to say. "cramped and hotter than that time I was running through a forest fire".

Well not "cramped", Cosy would probably be the right word for it. But he would not budge on the temperature, Harry was fairly certain that the flames spewed by some of the lesser dragons he'd encountered in his travels where almost chilled by comparison. Harry was half-expecting the wooden cottage to light itself on fire any second,

"So Harry, Heres that book ya wanted." The friendly, over-sized man said as he handed Harry a slightly singed copy of _Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit_ , Harry took it only to recoil a bit as he felt a strange slime stain his hands. "Hagrid, What is this?" the boy-who-lived said, as he looked at the translucent, vicious fluid that had stained the back-cover.

"Ah, Fang must've gotten into it." The groundskeeper said, head nodding towards the dog sitting by the raging fire. "He's got a bit of energy ta burn, with Fluffy gone." Hagrid whispered under his breath, sending a sympathetic glance at Fang, who was currently standing upright looking into the cauldron over the fire clearly intend on getting into whatever soup or stew Hagrid was cooking.

"That big dog on the third-floor Corridor?" the question slipped out from between Ron's lips before any of the three could stop it, causing Harry to grasp his forehead in shame at his friends apparent inability to keep a secret. Hagrid's eyes seemingly bulged out of his head.

"Why can't you just bring Fang to Fluffy then?" Harry attempted to move the conversation forward, desperately relying on the groundskeepers love for all living creatures to distract him from Ron's accidental admissions of rule breaking as to avoid getting into trouble.

"I've been busy 'll-right, haven't had the time. Between feeding the giant squid, helping professor Kettleburn with the Thestral's whatever's been plaguing the unicorns… I just haven't had the time." The overlarge man said, "Poor Fluffy, stuck inside all alone without his-" The now crying giant blew his nose into his handkerchief. "friend Fang, just sittin' in that tiny room alone all day. I've barely had the time to…" the became complety incomprehensible as his sobbing guilt took over.

Suddenly an idea popped into the young king's mind, if he played his cards right… maybe he could not only avoid detention for going into the corridor… but even get some vital information about what lied behind the door from Ron's nightmares.

"Calm down Hagrid,-" Harry said as he sat himself down next to the fireplace, scratching Fang besides its ears as the dog continued looking into the cauldron, apparently unaware that it didn't contain the stew Fang was looking for. "What If someone else could help ensure Fang and Fluffy still get time together? I've got a way with animals, and Fang seems to like me-" Harry hugged the hound as if to emphasize his point. "So... How about I take Fang and Fluffy together in the morning, and you don't tell Headmaster Dumbledore about how we accidentally found our way into the forbidden corridor?"

Honestly, it was too easy. Harry hadn't known Hagrid for long, but the giant man was almost unbelievably simple to read, and clearly carried his love for his "beasties" on his sleeve. Tapping just a tiny bit into his authority to make Fang seem excited about the prospect of getting to spend time with Harry just guaranteed that Hagrid was going to go along with it. Even if Harry had to whipe the slobber off his cheeks afterwards.

And as expected, Hagrid readily agreed, though not without giving Harry a true laundry-list of instructions on how to care for the two hounds. From the rarity of Fluffy's steaks, (Each head apparently liked their steaks just a little differently, the rightmost head liking them raw whereas the leftmost preferred their meat well done. The middle one was, fittingly enough, in the somewhere in between.) to the favourite spots on their body for brushing, (behind the ear, as if Harry hadn't figured that much out already) and their favourite songs for bedtime (Clair de Lune, which Harry sadly didn't know how to play).

"Allright Harry, and don't forget, Fluffy's a trained guard dog through an through so under no circumstance should you touch the trapdoor, What's behind there is for Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel only, you understand?" Hagrid finished his list as Harry promptly spat out his tea.

"Nicholas Flamel?" Harry half choked going stiff as a board, before straightening his face out and trying desperately to pretend he had not noticed Hagrid's unintended slip.

This was big… like, bigger then big. The bigger then his sister's golden buddha's kind of big.

Looking at Hermione and Ron on their respective chairs Harry send them a message with a look.

They had a lead, and a pretty good one at that.

As soon as they closed the door to Hagrid's hut behind them, Hermione was already on him.

"So… Who's this Nicholas Flamel, and why are YOU so afraid of him?" Hermione asked. "And don't pretend you don't know, we both saw how you reacted to hearing the name."

"Well,-" Harry was about to respond, but was cut off by a slightly desperate Ron

"Yeah mate, do you know this bloke? cause if you do you have to tell us mate."

"I mean… by name and reputation, I guess? But not personally… though I've heard a lot about him from my sister. " Harry paused for breath as he grappled with the words that were about to come out of his mouth, "That man… he's the world's greatest alchemist and the only living man older then Voban."

A hand on his shoulder stopped the young king, as he turned to look at his red-haired companion, "But Harry… I thought you said that your brother was…"

"Over three-hundred years old?" Harry finished.

The look on Hermione and Ron's faces was almost worth the knot Harry felt forming in his stomach as he looked towards Hogwarts. "At least now we know what's in the third floor corridor, I just cant imagine who'd try and steal the philosopher stone?"

The next weeks flew by as the trio cancelled their research into Orpheus and moved onto researching the history of the stone,

But besides waiting for the Witangemot to have a breakthrough, Nothing much happened until one morning when Harry returned to Hagrid's hut to fetch Fang for their daily walk towards the 3rd floor corridor. When Hagrid suddenly pulled Harry inside the cottage.

-"A dragon's egg?" Harry's jaw hit the floor as he looked at the large rounded shell lying on Hagrid's table, wrapped in steaming hot blankets. The American-football sized, thin bone shell decorated with a ridges and scales was honestly the last thing he'd expected to see when he came over to visit Hagrid's house at the half-giant's prodding invitations.

He'd expected something more modest, for lack of a better term. Something like a foal from the unicorns he'd witnessed during his nightly meditations, or a rare magical bird.  
But a dragon's egg?

Where did Hagrid get a dragon's egg? Why did the groundskeeper think he was going to care for it…

Well that question was probably an easy answer, knowing Hagrid he'd probably decided that the no-doubt one day fearsome beast would make for an adorable pet of sorts, and hadn't adequately considered the factors involved in raising a tiny dragon.

Factors which included biting, providing sufficient food, space for housing and their alarming tendency to burn down homes and villages, the latter of which being quite more relevant to the current situation then the others.

Hagrid, who lived in a small wooden cottage, was trying to raise a large fire breathing lizard… Surely even the sometimes dim-witted man would be able to see the problem here.

Well… seeing as both Hermione and Ron were currently back in the castle doing homework, it seemed it would befall onto Harry to talk some sense into the man. "Hagrid… You live in a wooden hut. That thing"-Harry pointed towards the egg, a tiny crack beginning to form in it's shell. "is going to breathe fire… I know you didn't finish Hogwarts, but even you understand that two plus two is four".

"So? Tis here 'sall up to code, Not a board in me home that don't meet DMAC guidelines"

"DMAC?"

"That'd be the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes? Is'n abbreviation Harry." The giant clarified. "They're the bit'o the wizardin' gov'ment in charge of makin' sure houses and buildings be safe. Once ev'ry two or three years they'll send a wizard ter inspect yer house and make sure yer lightning redirecting wards are up ter snuff amongst others. And lemme tell you my fire-repellent charms are still in tip-top shape." Hagrid boasted as he sweeped his arms pointing towards the wooden rafters as if to show them off.

Come to think of it, It had been true that a lot of the wizarding housing seemed to be wooden. Maybe not all of them but more so than the brick-stone houses he remembered from his days in privet drive. Idly Harry wondered whether there were any other cultural differences he hadn't noticed yet… Resolving to look into the matter in the future, he put the issue aside to address the proverbial elephant, and literal dragon, in the room.

"Well Hagrid, Clearly you've at least put some thought into this…"Harry lied, knowing the whimsical giant had definitely chosen to walk this path as a spur-of-the-moment idea prompted by gods-knows-what. "But how do you intend to feed it, I've read up on them a bit and a growing dragon can eat as much as an entire sheep a week. How do you plan to feed it? Hell! How DID you even scramble together the money to buy the egg in the first place?" Harry screamed out in incredulity.

"Ah won 'im in a game of cards."  
Of all the possible answers, that was probably the one that made the least sense. Harry could imagine Hagrid making a spur of the moment decision to take out a ridiculously inflated loan, or to have made money co-writing a book about the fauna inhabiting the forbidden woods. But for him to have just won it? There was something fishy there.  
There was no way anyone in possession of a highly illegal and prohibitively expensive dragon's egg would just gamble it away under normal circumstances, especially not without a similar prize to gain from their opponent.

But what could Hagrid have had to bet that would equal the value, and risk of exposure to DMLE attention. Perhaps his house? Looking around the room Harry couldn't help but conclude it highly unlikely, a dragon's egg would probably go for a prize closer to a mansion then this (admittedly quaint) little hut of Hagrid's… And that was assuming the hut was even Hagrid's to bet away. The young kind was fairly certain it'd merely come with the job as groundskeeper, probably belonging to the school rather than to any private individual.

No… there was nothing Hagrid could've provided that a sane man would deem worth risking the expense and threat of punishment involved, there was nothing here for them to win in the first place.

There was something there in that thought, what if it hadn't been a thing they'd wanted. What if it'd been a creature instead. Betting one valuable magical beast in exchange for another?

Steeling himself, Harry decided that the only way to get his answer would be simply to ask.  
"Hagrid, I need you to answer me honestly. What did you bet in exchange for the egg"

"Well ye see, ah mus' admit ter beein' a bit tipsy at the time…" the half-giant winced, clearly feeling guilty about whatever he was about to admit.  
"ah might've bet Fluffy?" The man half said half asked. As a thought hatched in Harry's brain like the little dragon on the table from its egg.

Whomever Hagrid had bet against, they hadn't been playing against Hagrid in the first place, and they had never cared whether he won or lost the hand. They'd never been playing for money, they'd been playing for gold. And a lot of it… as much as a man could ever want, along with an eternity to spend it in.

They'd been playing against Flamel, and Hagrid had just gotten caught up in the crossfire.

The cards could've gone either way on that table, and the result would've been the same. Hagrid could lose the game, and remove one layer of protection from the stone. Or win, and through a simple anonymous tip to the DMLE about Hagrid's illegal dragon he'd be arrested and with him Fluffy would've been removed from the board.

Looking the half-giant in the eye, Harry channelled every bit of kingly authority his sister had rubbed off on im over the years and decreed: "Hagrid, whomever your mysterious gambler is, he's after the philosopher's stone, and is looking to get you and Fluffy out of the picture.

That thing"- Harry pointed towards the scaly lizard on the table "was only ever meant to get you fired.

We need to get rid of the dragon… And we need to do it quickly."

The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was no-doubt processing the anonymous tip as they spoke.

Ordering Hagrid to keep close all the blinds, and keep the new-born drake in his sight at all costs Harry ran towards the castle to retrieve his best friend. This promised to be a long night, and he could use the assistance.

 **So… This took a while, and I'm sorry.**

 **Long story short, there was a lot that needed to be done this chapter, from showing that the trio are both pro-active enough to do their own investigations, but still smart enough to rely on experts. Getting Hagrid to somewhat organically reveal Fluffy's name and drop the stone-hint, and the whole Norberta thing. The whole thing just kept feeling bad, and I just couldn't get it all to work.**

 **So I rewrote, and rewrote. And it just kept messing it up until one day, I read a thing on Tumblr:**

" **Technically the Wright brothers made the worst airplanes." Something about that just made me think, Its either do it imperfectly and learn, or don't do it at all.**

 **So… time to accept some hokey-er seques between subjects.**

 **I did manage to get an entire separate chapter pre-written already, but I can't post it yet due to narrative reasons. (also I realised like a month ago that I made a pretty bad flaw in there that needs to be edited out before posting it, it'll probably be a book 2 thing)**

 **Let's hope that I can really get back into the flow again soon. And that the upcoming chapters don't need me to do as many things at once.**

 **I tried to make Harry's concerns more logistical then legal, but Harry's still not going to allow Hagrid to keep Norbert due to the simple issue of "it's a dragon near a school full of children".**

 **Honestly, At first I couldn't figure out a single logical reason Quirrell would've bet the egg against Hagrid, all he needed was to get the giant drunk enough to slip his lips, but on closer thought things made a lot more sense, even if Hagrid hadn't told him about Fluffy's weakness to music, the egg would've caused Hagrid's arrest, and an anonymous tip that the dragon wasn't the only of his animals he wasn't qualified to keep would've gotten the Cerberus removed.**

 **Honestly, quite an excellent plan on Quirrellmort's behalf, and it kind of makes me respect the guy as a villain more than any of his later plots.**

 **Now, as far as we know, canonically the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophe's really only deals with accidental magic, oblivations and other statute of secrecy related things. But in a regulated society there'd be laws on basic health and safety, and as that is all about preventing accidents and catastrophe's I decided that rather then make a separate department for the Magical OSHA, I would just make it part of their job, just the preventative part.**

 **Dialogue is still the second worst (second only to dialogue involving Hagrid's damned accent), but at least I feel like im doing better then before.**

 **Now onto non-OEA related subjects, I've scrapped the RWBY-Campione thing I had semi-pre-written, (The ideas just wouldn't work beyond a rough draft. I'll still put in the time to see if it can be salvaged but it's on the backburner.) and have moved onto a BNHA-Campione thing, that I hope will write itself a bit better.**

 **So, should only be 3-4 chapters left in this book. Then i'll put the One Eyed King on hiatus to work on the first story-arc for Godslaying Bowman before returning for the Chamber of Secrets. Im thinking of naming it "One Eyed Aspis", cause it's the only snake with an A besides an Anaconda)**


	12. Chapter 12: Of Villains and Ron

**One Eyed Alchemy Chapter 12.**

A pitch-black, foggy night had descended upon the Hogwarts grounds by the time that a large golden swan, carrying a small drake in its claws, took to the heavens and turned towards the southern skies unaware of the two eyes watching in the distance.

The observer's name was Trismegistus, a god of alchemy and magic. When he'd first arrived upon these highlands he'd been forced to admit his respect for that mortal Nicholas. The castle was built in the midst of a strong barrier, meant to trap any and all divinities that set foot within it, and the god of magic had recognised the divinity in an instant.

"He'd" been exposed to this authority once before, during his fight with the serpent Apepophis, when the warden goddess had used it to set a boundary from which no divinity could escape.

The warden authority, belonging to the scorpion-goddess had, back then proved instrumental in their defeat of the God of Chaos. Keeping the serpent sealed within and protecting his fellow gods from some of the deadliest venoms the world had ever known.

But now, it was in his way. A cunning ploy by that mortal alchemist, and one he could respect, to hide his treasure on land protected by his old ally. Combined with the presence of a young devil, who'd no doubt engage him the moment he revealed himself, he had to admit a degree of respect for Nicholas' cunning.

It wouldn't stop him though, nothing would. His domains were varied and the boundaries that were no doubt meant to trap him were amongst them, if he truly wanted to he could've removed the castles protections with a single gesture and he'd have his treasure in an instant.

But using his divine authorities in such a manner would go against the spirit of this competition, and he intended to win it fair. So instead, he'd set up a plot of his own.

First, he'd instructed one of his followers to alert some of the seedier aspects of this community about this castle's hidden treasure. He'd waited to see which greedy mortals would take the bait, and placed a small enchantment on the poor fools mind, letting him "guide" their decisions to his own advantage.

And then, he'd settled himself down outside the boundary, and waited. Studying the divine energies flowing through the lands around the castle, and after months of studying devised a spell to redirect those energies, just long enough to allow him to open the door for just a little while.

Thirdly: he'd studied the young devil hidden amidst the children attending this school. The greatest protection Nicholas had managed to arrange. And over the course of months he'd discerned their twin authorities.

One, gained from the warden of this place, that granted mastery of venom. And a second that granted a variety of divine beasts.

And now, with the moon shining overhead was the time for him to make his move. Using the spells crafted over the months, he opened the door just long enough for the Godslayer to escape towards the continent, planted his staff into the ground and spoke.

"I shall make the fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, that all whom are bitten and see it shall live"

The staff glowed a brass-toned light, as he weaved his magic, and by the time the golden swan flew its way across the distant horizon, a large brass serpent had taken its place. An authority he'd stolen, in days long past from a desert-god, the Nehushtan possessed the power to nullify any poison, and would be invaluable to him, should the child-king return.

With the unwitting guard abandoning his post, the god marched his way across the boundary, unimpeded.

Lupa and her pack were enjoying themselves in the misty woods, guided only by the moon's dim light, as they enjoyed the freedom of the hunt. Chasing their prey through the dark of the night. The small white creature bounding through the underbrush as it hopped along the ground.

The rest of the pack followed Lupa's lead in their master's absence, The young king having flown away just before the sunless time came once more. There was something uniquely freeing about running without their master, without the strange and arbitrary whims of the human to restrain their desires mere seconds before their kills.

Master rarely let the pack run as free as they wished, but tonight he'd left them to hunt on their own, and the pack was going to enjoy their chance at a true hunt once more.

Well, as much of a "true" hunt as it could be, Master had forbidden them from the two-legged prey who inhabited the stone den in the clearing, or the four-legged hooved critters that wandered these woods, and the large bearded man who protected these lands before master ever brought them here. Master had ordered the pack to protect those, and Lupa had no will to go against master.

But the rest of those who lived within the woods were free for the taking, already they'd devoured a small colony of large spiders, a red-tailed fox and they'd even gotten into a scramble with their mortal kin.

Their current prey though, was a small white rabbit, desperately bounding through the moonlight seeking its borough, as the snapping jaws trailed its small form as it used its smaller form to evade the pack, leading them through bushes and bramble that would have torn the fur of their mortal brethren. The bramble slowed the pack though, barely enough for their prey to find its shelter beneath the unearthed roots of a large tree.

So, the pack turned their noses to the sky once again, to find their newest prey.

The smell of blood, hung from the tree as a silver fluid dripped from its branches. A wounded beast? The promise of an easy prey was tempting.

Lupa howled towards the heavens, and the pack set chase once more following the thin silver trail through the woods.

Quirinus Quirrell, regretted every choice he'd ever made, as the taste of silver blood stained his tongue. The dagger in his hands, coated in the unicorn's lifeblood, a heavy presence on his mind.

It'd been half a year since he took that ill-fated trip to Albania, and had his first run-in with the accursed spectre that now inhabited his body. At the time, he'd still had the energy to fight the spirit, but seeing his own wand turn on him over the month leading up to the new schoolyear, he'd soon learned this wasn't a fight he'd be able to win.

Growing up during Voldemort's reign of terror. Quirinus had dreamed about the Dark lord's defeat, and spent many a night dreaming, his mind casting himself as the hero to banish the dark Lord and restore peace to the wizarding world.

How foolish he had been back then, to believe he could ever stand a chance against such a power as his newfound lord. Nowadays Quirinus could hardly control his own body unless his master let him, and he'd become resigned to his fate. The possessing spirit draining his soul, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, had taken a toll on his body and made it even harder to fight back against his master's command.

The commands had varied over the months. Sometimes they were simple " _Kill the witness_ " and " _Follow the Keeper of the Keys through Diagon_ ", some were hard like " _Smuggle a Dragon's egg_ ", " _Break into Gringotts_ " and " _Set the troll loose unnoticed_ ", which had inevitably been followed by " _Smuggle a new monster into Hogwarts to replace the troll before Dumbledore notices you aren't protecting the stone_ ".

And most recently, " _…drink._ "

Kneeling in the dark woods, he cast one last glimpse towards the castle, it's windows lit by candlelight before touching his lips to the opened neck. Drinking in the blood, he felt his body heave as the taste of copper touched his tongue, his mouth protesting against the heinous act. Yet as he kept drinking the foul liquid, he felt himself regain some of the strength the spirit had stolen over the last half-year.

At least, it seemed the books were right about the blood's rejuvenating power. He got up to his feet once more, as a howling resounded through the mists. Maybe the rumours of werewolves in the forbidden woods were true?

" _I remember… the wolves that inhabited these woods when I attended these halls"_ , the spectre spoke, the whisper in his mind both a calming presence, and a dark portent. " _They shall make an excellent opportunity to test your regained strength_ ".

A simple use of the _point me_ spell later, Quirrell turned into the dark woods. Wand at the ready. Moving through the mists, ears focused on the sound of padded feet through the underbrush.

A small, black blur burst from the bushes, a wand flicked and the forest flashed with green light, and the lifeless hound, the size of a muggle automobile, fell into the mud before him. Quirinus took on a battle-ready stance, preparing himself for the rest of the pack.

" _Strange…_ " His master's voice whispered in the back of his head. " _I remember those beasts, the half-giant raised beneath his bed… their fur was… lighter back then_ ". His master went on, as Quirrell carefully flicked his wand at the corpse, repelling it away form him. Pleased at the distance he send the large beast. It was more than he would've managed before drinking from the blood.

" _I believe they used to be smaller as well…_ " His master went on, " _But then, those were mere cubs I saw back then.. This must be the alpha then…"_

A deep growl interrupted the spirit, as Quirrell turned towards the noise behind him.

Over a dozen deep, glowing golden eyes surrounded by midnight-black stared towards him, A pack of wolves, larger than the one behind him stared. White fangs glimmering in the moonlight.

Scabbers, Also known as Peter Pettigrew was staring boredly out the Gryffindor tower window. Life as a rat was, all in all, quite a boring affair. Boring, but safe, as long as he avoided the owls and cats inhabiting the castle.

Luckily for Pettigrew, none of the students in Ron Weasley's assigned dorm had cats, and the owl's generally kept to the rookery. So he had free reign in this dorm to spend his nights looking out the window, reminiscing on the days when he and his friends used to run around the forbidden forest in their animagus forms.

Which is what he spent most of his nights doing these days, he really didn't have anything else he could do. Life as a traitor to the winning side was honestly miserable, and there wasn't a day in his life that went by where he didn't wish he'd had the courage to resist Voldemort's bargain.

That was how he'd spent the last decade or so of his life, dreaming of what could've been, trapped in the life of a tiny rat. From time to time, he'd considered running away from the Weasley household, but he hadn't wanted to risk life as a rat in the wild. And Peter, well he was dead, a famous war hero with his name plastered on the front page when he "died avenging the Potters". A man with multiple memorials dedicated to him (though not as any as James and Lily). His face was too easily recognisable, and Polyjuice was too expensive.

So Wormtail was trapped. The greatest freedom available to him, the freedom to crawl around the Gryffindor dorm in relative safety. His greatest hobby, watching the forbidden forest out the window, and dreaming about days gone by.

Which is why he noticed, when a part of the forest flashed a bright green. And then, a little while later flashed twice more.

Which is why he noticed, a small blur of smoke traveling between the trees.

And why, when the smokey-spirit turned towards Hogwarts, and the mark on his arm started to burn with a familiar pain. Peter Pettigrew, and not Scabbers, was the one who greeted his master.

Ron Weasley, was dreaming once again.

The castle's familiar misty halls, he'd wandered. He'd bypassed the hound. Taken the horse past the soldiers with flaming eyes, and he was once again at the graveyard.

This was the bit that kept waking him up. And he really, really hoped he'd be able to sleep past it for once, or at least to remember one more name.

So he wandered between the tombstones, trying by god to find any pattern whatsoever amidst the varied names. Spending weeks memorising three at a time, and relaying them to Harry for him to send to the Witangemot.

" _Robert Branch", "Isaac Smith"_ and _"Johnathan Cook"_. He decided, would be the names for today.

Names that meant nothing to him, nothing more than "Man I don't know". Which seemed to be the unifying factor between most of the tombstones to be honest. Not the "do not know", but the "Man" part that is.

All the tombstones, were male.

Harry's contacts had told him most the names seemed to live in Hogsmeade, and the immediate area. But that still came no closer to figuring out what this vision meant.

Turning right at "Charles Emptrouser", he steadied his resolve and found himself in front of a familiar stone once more.

" _Harry James Potter_ ", the large tombstone, overgrown with purple flowers read. He'd never dreamt past this point before.

But this time, he noticed something new, the sound of leathery wings, as a large winged shadow flew in the distance, approaching at a speed that made high-end racing brooms pale in comparison.

The dragon, because what else could it be. Released a bellowing roar, and the flowers wilted.

And Ron sprang upright in his bed, to the sight of a two-faced figure, one bearing the face of a rat, and the other looking like a nightmare come to life.

" _Imperio…"_

 **To address the reviewer Ariadne Venegas. I agree that the hallows are important, but the fact is that they don't do anything that Harry wouldn't already get due to the authorities the story requires. Also, the wand doesn't guarantee victory in magical battles, remember Dumbledore lost it in battle to Malfoy, it's a good artefact and it'll be very crucial in the upcoming chapter. But with the authorities that I've planned for Harry the other two would just get kind of redundant? So they'll be included in the story, but they won't be "Harry's", if that makes sense?**

 **So, let's see if I can write an entire chapter without Harry even showing up once. (I mean, the wolves technically are "a part of" Harry, but they're also separate enough that its not like they ARE Harry)**

 **So, I decided to answer a question that I don't think cannon answers, that being "how the ever-loving fudge did Tom even know about the stone being in Hogwarts, and which bank vault before then."**

 **So, the chant given used by Trismegistus when summoning the brass serpent (Nehushtan) is taken almost straight from Numbers 21:4-9, just modified to be first-person.**

 **So, I had to write Quirrell, who is canonically pretty much a non-entity. All we know about him is that he used to be a promising teacher, went to Albania to get experience fighting the dark forces, got some experience LOSING to the dark forces. And is now cursed.  
That doesn't give me a lot to work off, but I tried to make it work.  
I decided that, a recognised fighter against the dark forces, currently hooked up on unicorn blood (possibly a magical steroid) should at least be allowed to kill ONE wolf, before being devoured. Let him die with the little dignity he had before he got possessed.  
**

**Bet you all didn't expect Pettigrew to become relevant this quickly right? Yeah, I didn't either, honestly while rewriting this I realised that my original plan (Possess Severus) made less sense than this (He has two options, both marked. Severus is more useful as an undercover agent, Pettigrew is a better sacrificial pawn) and I was like "well, that's a way better plan for Tom to improvise." So, that's good news for Severus, who doesn't get to suffer the bad health-effects of possession (as he would've in my first rough draft).  
In my mind, Pettigrew is defined by two things, Courage, and a slight degree of regret/despair. I decided to play up the "what have I done, sweet Jesus what have I done" side of the character a bit. **

**I am also glad to announce I've sort of figured out what to do about Hermione, because Ron was easy, just lean more into his canonical latent divination-powers, Hermione was just kind of "how will I have this affect her", and make her better. So I think I found at least something to do with her. (not a lot, but better than nothing.)**

 **The brass serpent, Nehushtan, (who might be related to the Hindu snake-king Nahusha) is believed the be a relic of a minor god of protection from snakebites.**

 **Trying to write part of the chapter from the POV of a wolf was fun, but also weird, having to resort to descriptions for words they would lack a concept for.**

 **So, I'm not even going to pretend to feel sorry for the Cliff-hanger, I don't care if its manipulative, I just want feedback whether I got the manipulation to work correctly.**


	13. Update, Not a chapter

Hello readers of Izuku the Godslaying Archer, and the One Eyed King Series.

I decided that I needed to write an update, to tell you all the status of each of my projects. And why chapters are slow.

Firstly, I want to say, I intended to alternate the stories on an arc-based basis. First complete Book 1 of One eyed king, then continue godslaying archer for an arc, then switch back.

This is still the plan, and as such Izuku'll probably be waiting in the wings for a while for reason of the second problem.

I wrote myself into a corner. And not one of those "I created a plothole and need to fix it" problems, it's a much more real world problem, that kind of snuck up on me.  
All three major deities involved in the stories, all have plague based authorities. And heavily rely on them, and I just don't feel right writing a "fun story" about a character fighting gods of plague, when there are actual people in quarantine due to the Coronavirus… As of now, I can only hope that as the bad news around it seems to be dying down, my interest in writing these stories resurges.

On a more fun note, I accidentally made a minor error in Godslaying Archer, by trusting first-page google results. Apparantly 16 is Izuku's current age in cannon, but the Izuku who meets Allmight is 14, and the one who exits all-mights training montage is 15. This took only a minor edit to fix,

I hope that none of you are too bothered by the delay.  
Sincerely, Some dude with a keyboard.


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